Markets are not immutable spaces. They change. They transform. They reinvent themselves due to trends that are born, grow and die. In recent years, however, few sectors have experienced as many ups and downs as supermarkets. He Mercadona boomthe push of the regional chains and the merchants They are revolutionizing the business, although there is another phenomenon that is even clearer: white label success. From being the ‘ugly ducklings’ of the stores, the cheap option and of dubious quality, brands like Hacendado or Auchan have come to dominate more than 60% of what households spend on food.
The reason is very simple: today’s ‘white label’ is not yesterday’s white label and everything indicates that it will not be the same one we will see in a few years.
A pillar of the sector. The white label is doing well in Spain. Very good, in fact. For some time now the sector manages studies which demonstrate that the distributors’ brands have expanded their weight in the market, taking an increasingly larger portion of the food and drugstore business.
What’s more, there are supermarket chains that can no longer be understood without their brands. The latest data show that almost 79% of Mercadona’s sales are made up of items that carry their own labels, such as Bosque Verde. And the percentage is not very different in Aldi, Dia or Lidl, where it rises to 82.6%.
The percentage: 61.2%. The above is not new. What is new is the study by the consulting firm Circana, advanced by Efe, which shows that the private label is becoming the undisputed queen of the food business in Spain. According to your latest datafrom the first semester, you teach like Bosque Verde, Hacendado or Deliplus, they monopolize 61.2% of spending total in food.
In practice, this means that six out of every ten euros that were moved in Spain within the food sector and branch went to brands controlled directly by the supermarket chains, not by the manufacturers.
But… Has it grown? Yes. And quite clearly, too, what take to the experts to wonder if the expansion of private label will peak at some point. Circana’s report shows that during the first half of 2026 its food footprint has increased by 5.3% in terms of sales value and 3.1% in volume. This difference in percentages is largely explained by the increase in prices, which these months have risen on average by 2.2%.
There are business niches in which the expansion has been even clearer. On the shelves of drugstores and cleaning supplies, the white label has grown by 3.4% until achieving a 65% quota. At the opposite extreme is the beverage business, in which brands from manufacturers other than supermarkets (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Bezoya, Font-Vella…) continue to dominate with an iron fist. In that case the picture is the opposite: external manufacturers account for 65.5% of the total expenditure, so private labels must be content with only a third of the pie.
Other percentage: 47.2%. Circana is not the only one that has recorded the growing success of private label. So has Worldpanel by Numerator, which has focused primarily on the demand for packaged products.
Its estimate for the first five months of 2026 shows that around 47.2% of products packages that households purchased carried labels from supermarket chains, a percentage that rises to 48.6% in the specific case of food and 56.3% if we talk about drugstores.
And what is the reason? Better to talk about reasons, in the plural. One of the key factors that explain the success of private labels is cost. In 2025 Shopdavizor published a report that found that for 90% of consumers Price continues to be a determining factor when purchasing items from brands such as Hacendado. And that is not a minor issue in a context clearly marked by inflation and with the Bank of Spain worsening your outlook.
There are studies that they assure that the supermarkets themselves are taking charge of penalizing the cost of external items on the shelves precisely to encourage the purchase of their brands. This explains why there are chains in which the white flags already represent more than 80% of sales in value quota.
Beyond the price. White label has always been associated with cheaper prices. That’s nothing new. The curious thing is that in recent years it has managed to shake off the ‘toll’ that this entailed: the low quality image.
It’s not just that the brands of Mercadona, Eroski, Consum, Alcampo… are growing, it’s that they have managed to change the perception that customers have of them and even aspire to put their heads into a business that was unimaginable until recently: premium items. Buying white label is no longer equivalent to comparing ‘cheap and bad’. Now people buy out of loyalty, trust, familiarity.
“Innovation, premium proposals, health and well-being or sustainability are expanding the role of the private label,” confirm Circana. The same idea is underlined by its managing director, Antonio Khalaf, who explains in the Efe agency that the chains themselves have changed the way they approach private label. “It is no longer just a tool to gain share, it behaves like a brand in itself, capable of generating loyalty to the brand.”
Changing image. In its 2025 report, Shopadvizor highlighted this by pointing out that for 80% of consumers there are no longer big differences between private labels and those sold under the names of their manufacturers.
In fact, although customers continue to focus on price tags, more and more factors enter the equation, such as emotional connection, variety, trust, quality or the degree of familiarization with the products. “The private label has surpassed its traditional role as an economic alternative to consolidate itself as a value option,” concluded the Shopdavizor report.
Images | Eroski Group (Flickr), Wikipedia and CCOO Services (Flickr)
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings