Wal-Mart Exec Likens Great Value Brand to Coca-Cola, Tide and Cheerios

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August 20, 2009

By Maureen Azzato

Wal-Mart is about 75 percent complete with its product reformulation and relaunch of its Great Value store brand, said Andrea Thomas, senior vice president of private label brands for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant.

Speaking at a Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce Champions presentation series, Thomas told about 200 people in attendance that the program includes repackaging and reformulating thousands of Great Value products across more than 100 categories, according to a report in The Morning News of Fayetteville, Ark.

The Great Value brand is the largest consumer packaged goods brand in the United States, Thomas said, on par or bigger than national mega brands such as Coca-Cola, Tide, Cheerios and Ocean Spray, which each tally more than $200 million in annual sales. "We are right there with them," Thomas said. "The Wal-Mart private brand is every bit as big, sometimes even bigger."

Great Value products include everything from cookies, crackers, peanut butter and other center-store staples to frozen food, pizza and other prepared foods, and household products such as detergent, paper products and trash bags. Wal-Mart also recently introduced new packaging for its Ol'Roy dog food and expects to develop other new private label products, Thomas told attendees.

In addition to actual product reformulations, Wal-Mart's focus with its relaunch also has been to reduced product packaging, which, Thomas noted, saves money and is environmentally more friendly. "When we save a penny, we are saving her a penny," Thomas said of Wal-Mart's predominant female customer base, which is upwards of 80 percent of all customers.

Simple and clean private label packaging also merchandises better on the shelf and makes stores look cleaner, Thomas added.

Several of Wal-Mart's suppliers also attended the presentation, including coupon company Valassis. Clay Hall, in sales for Valassis, told the New Morning News that he is paying close attention to private label trends to better support his national brand clients, who are working hard to stay on par in the value game against private label with their coupon and other promotions programs.

"It used to be more coupons had values in cents, prior to today's economic environment," Hall said. "Now we are seeing $1 or more off" national brands.

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