Private label in Europe: winning retailer deals
Store brands hold 38.8 percent of grocery sales in 17 European markets. How own-brand tenders, audits and the PLMA show work for manufacturers.
Private label, the retailer’s own brand, holds close to four in every ten euros of grocery spending across the European markets tracked by NielsenIQ for the Private Label Manufacturers Association. Retailers award those contracts through specifications, tenders and factory audits, not through brand pitches. A manufacturer wins own-brand business in Europe by meeting a written specification at a stated price, passing an audit against a retailer-recognised standard, and being in the room when buyers go looking.
That makes private label a different sale from a branded listing. The retailer owns the brand, writes the specification, and chooses the maker. The maker’s job is to answer, reliably and at the stated price, a question the retailer has already written down.
How large is private label in Europe?
The most cited figures come from the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA), which publishes an annual report on private label across Europe based on NielsenIQ data.
For the year to week 52 of 2025, PLMA reports a private label value share of 38.8 percent across 17 European countries, up 0.33 percentage points on the year before. Switzerland has the highest share, at 52.4 percent. Spain gained 1.0 point, Austria 0.9, Portugal 0.7 and the Netherlands 0.4.
An earlier cut of the same monitoring, for the year to week 40 of 2025, puts private label sales at 384 billion euros across the 17 countries, with twelve markets above a 30 percent share and eight above 40 percent.
The point for a manufacturer is scale and spread. Private label is not a niche in a few discount markets. It is a large part of how Europe’s grocery shelves are filled, and in several countries it is close to half.
What is a private label product?
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre defines a private label product as one produced by a manufacturer under a contract that specifies detailed product and packaging requirements, for a retailer or a group of retailers, and sold under the retailer’s brand name or under a name, label and logo developed for that purpose.
Three words in that definition carry the business model. Contract: the relationship is written, with a term. Specifies: the retailer defines the product, the pack and often the recipe. Retailer’s brand: the customer relationship belongs to the retailer, not to the maker.
How does a retailer choose the maker?
Retailers source own-brand products through a specification and a competitive process. The sequence varies by retailer and category, but the stages are recognisable.
- Specification. The retailer’s buying and quality teams define the product: composition, performance, pack format, shelf life, and target cost.
- Tender or request for quotation. Qualified manufacturers are invited to quote against the specification, with samples.
- Evaluation. Samples are tested against the specification and compared with the branded product the own brand will sit beside.
- Audit. The manufacturing site is audited before the first order.
- Award and launch. The contract is awarded for a period, the retailer approves artwork, and production starts.
- Re-tender. At the end of the period, the business can be put out to tender again.
Tenders are not always national. The Joint Research Centre’s 2020 report on retail alliances notes that European alliances, which group chains from different countries, run joint tenders for private label products. The same report is clear that the purchasing decisions on products and quantities, and the contracts for delivery, remain with each member. An alliance tender can open doors to several chains in several countries, but each member still decides and contracts separately.
What does the audit check?
The audit is where many first attempts fail, because it measures the factory rather than the product.
In food, the standard most European retailers recognise is IFS Food. IFS is a joint venture of the French retail federation FCD and the German retail federation HDE. Its standards assess whether suppliers of private label and branded products can deliver safe, quality products in line with customer specifications. IFS Food is at version 8 and is recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative. The other name buyers use is BRC, the British Retail Consortium standard, which appears alongside IFS in retailers’ own reporting.
Retailers publish how much weight they place on this. Carrefour’s 2022 report on health, nutrition and product quality counts 2,703 supplier sites for Carrefour-branded products bought through its European buying group, and reports 78 percent of those sites certified to IFS or BRC and 8 percent audited by Carrefour itself. The same report sets a standing objective of a quality audit of 100 percent of the supplier base.
The reason is in the same table. For suppliers of Carrefour-branded products bought through its European buying group, Carrefour recorded 564 product withdrawals in 2022, and 50.2 percent of them concerned Carrefour-branded products. When an own-brand product is withdrawn, it is the retailer’s name on the pack. The audit is how the retailer protects that name.
Where do buyers and makers meet?
Private label has its own trade fair, one of those listed in European trade fairs for manufacturers. PLMA’s World of Private Label International Trade Show is held at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre; the 2027 edition runs on Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 May. The show is organised around own-brand sourcing, so the buyers who walk it are there for exactly this question.
The broad food fairs matter too. SIAL Paris runs from 17 to 21 October 2026, and Anuga in Cologne from 9 to 13 October 2027. Anuga describes its audience as international decision-makers from the retail and foodservice sectors. A manufacturer attending any of them should arrive with the specification-ready facts a buyer needs: certifications held, capacity, minimum order quantities, lead time into the EU, and the categories it can make.
What changes for a maker outside the EU?
Three things change for a manufacturer from outside the EU.
The audit travels. The retailer audits the site where the product is made, wherever that is. A certification such as IFS Food is designed to be recognised across retailers, which reduces the number of separate audits, but it does not remove the need for one.
The label is European. For food, Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires mandatory food information in a language easily understood by consumers in each member state where the food is sold. A product destined for several countries carries several languages or several packs.
The supply chain is judged as part of the bid. A retailer awarding a contract weighs the risk of an empty shelf. Stock held inside the EU, released for free circulation and ready to deliver to the retailer’s depots, answers that risk. Stock that arrives by sea only after each order does not.
Branded, private label, or both?
Some manufacturers make both, and the two businesses pull in different directions.
Private label offers volume, a written specification and a customer who handles the marketing. In exchange, the retailer owns the brand, can re-tender the business, and holds strong leverage over price.
Branded business keeps the brand and the margin with the maker, and costs more to build. The shelf has to be won category review by category review, and the consumer has to be persuaded.
For a manufacturer entering Europe, private label can fund the fixed cost of being in the market while a branded range is built. It can also make the brand harder to build, if the same factory supplies a cheaper own-brand version beside it. That decision is strategic, and it should be taken deliberately rather than by accepting the first tender that arrives.
How this runs at EFC
EFC helps companies from outside the EU operate and grow in Europe and around the world. For own-brand business, its business development work starts from the retailer’s side: which chains buy the category, when they review it, and what their specification and audit ask for. The facts a buyer needs, certifications held, capacity, minimum order quantities and lead time into the EU, are prepared before the first contact, and the client decides which tenders to answer.
A retailer weighing the risk of an empty shelf gets its answer from stock held in Portugal, inside the EU customs union, and delivered to its depots through EFC’s fulfilment. That side is quoted separately.
What this article is not
This article describes how private label sourcing generally works in Europe. Each retailer runs its own process, and the stages above are a common shape, not a published rule. It is not legal, regulatory or food safety advice. Which certification a retailer requires, and which labelling rules apply to a specific product, should be confirmed with the retailer and with qualified advisers.
The market figures are PLMA’s, based on NielsenIQ monitoring of 17 European countries. They cover grocery, and they do not describe every category or every country.
The European side of that work, market by market, is on business development in Europe.
Sources
| Label | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Private label value share, year to week 52 of 2025 | 38.8 percent across 17 European countries, up 0.33 points; Switzerland 52.4 percent; growth led by Spain, Austria, Portugal and the Netherlands | PLMA, Private Label Today, NielsenIQ data, opened 2026-09-17 |
| Private label sales, year to week 40 of 2025 | 384 billion euros across 17 countries; 12 markets above 30 percent share, 8 above 40 percent | PLMA, private label sales and shares surge across Europe, opened 2026-09-17 |
| Definition of a private label product | produced under a contract specifying detailed product and packaging requirements, for a retailer or group, sold under the retailer’s brand | European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Retail alliances in the agricultural and food supply chain, 2020, footnote 9, opened 2026-09-17 |
| Joint private label tenders | European retail alliances run joint tenders for private label products; purchasing decisions on products and quantities, and delivery contracts, remain with each member (p. 9) | JRC, Retail alliances, 2020, abstract, opened 2026-09-17 |
| IFS ownership and purpose | joint venture of FCD (France) and HDE (Germany); assesses whether suppliers of private label and branded products deliver safe, quality products in line with customer specifications | IFS, about IFS, opened 2026-09-17 |
| IFS Food status | version 8; GFSI-recognised | IFS, IFS Food standard, opened 2026-09-17 |
| Carrefour own-brand supplier base, 2022 | 2,703 supplier sites; 78 percent certified IFS or BRC; 8 percent audited by Carrefour; objective of a quality audit of 100 percent of the supplier base | Carrefour Group, Health, nutrition and product quality 2022, opened 2026-09-17 |
| Carrefour withdrawals, 2022 | scope: suppliers of Carrefour-branded products purchased by the European buying group; 564 withdrawals; 50.2 percent concerned Carrefour-branded products | Carrefour Group, Health, nutrition and product quality 2022, opened 2026-09-17 |
| PLMA trade show 2027 | RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, 25 and 26 May 2027 | PLMA, World of Private Label International Trade Show, opened 2026-09-17 |
| SIAL Paris 2026 | 17 to 21 October 2026, Paris Nord Villepinte | Paris je t’aime, official Paris tourism office, SIAL Paris 2026, opened 2026-09-17 |
| Anuga 2027 | 9 to 13 October 2027, Cologne; audience described as international decision-makers from the retail and foodservice sectors | Anuga, official site, opened 2026-09-17 |
| Food label language | mandatory food information in a language easily understood by consumers where the food is marketed | Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Article 15(1). legislation.gov.uk, opened 2026-09-17 |