The second year of PLBuyer’s Design Excellence Awards brought in more than 100 submissions over 16 categories, giving our quartet of judges plenty to think about over the course of a September day.

Pet Products Get Spotlight At PLMA Show

The Private Label Manufacturers Association announced winners in 45 categories in its 2012 Salute to Excellence Awards, given to new private label products that exemplify high quality, innovation, and value to consumers, the group said in a news release.

Whole Foods Market co-founder and CEO John Mackey will deliver the keynote address this month at the Private Label Manufacturers Association’s annual Private Label Trade Show in Chicago.

Four companies based in Lima, Peru, site of the 2012 Expoalimentaria show, will be in Chicago in November as exhibitors at the PLMA Trade Show.

Slow growth continues in category, but frugal customers seeking more from products.

Mintel forecasts 26 percent drop in private label juice sales by 2016, before inflation.

After three years of decline, sales of frozen entrées are expected to remain flat this year. Although the category struggles to grow, niche companies and ethnic categories provide some optimism for private label.

As retailers look to expand their categories and tiers in nonfood private label products, they will seek their customers’ help to figure out which way to move forward, Planet Retail Senior Retail Analyst Isabel Cavill told a webinar audience.

Thanks in part to aggressive marketing and streamlined product lines from leading brands and retailers, consumers who curtailed their purchase cycles and refrained from testing new products during the recession are back and ready to spend.

Private label olives and relishes have a lot of growth yet to gain. But they better move quickly before consumers start shopping out more frequently.

The story is a familiar one. Consumer Reports magazine, in its October issue that hit shelves in early September, did a comparison of 19 grocery staples, pitting private label products against national-brand items.

Management Services Company Brings European Knowledge To New Markets.

Our secret shoppers headed to the refrigerated section of their local grocers to find out what’s happening in dairy products, one of the largest categories for private label sales in grocery.

If retailers want to bring customers to buy their private label pet food and pet care products, they will have to maintain their price advantage over national brands.

I am writing this month’s column while in Europe and thinking about the volcanic eruptions taking place around the world.

Millennials have different shopping patterns than Boomers, but change won’t happen all at once.

Research Shows Consumers Changing Where They Go To Buy Groceries.

To succeed today, retailers need to shake off the assumptions of the past about their private label portfolios.

Retailers, Marketers Need To Offer More To Fill Out Their Private Brand Portfolios.

Brand-led strategy the right approach for retailers in the future.

So many things that I could be talking about as we enter into November.