FDBusiness.com

British consumers are developing a growing taste for home-grown brands, according to Kantar Worldpanel’s fifth annual barometer of the nation’s most chosen FMCG brands. The latest UK ranking, which measures which brands are being bought by the most consumers the most often, has revealed that the number of British favourites among the top 10 UK brands has increased to seven – up from six last year.

New this year, Kantar Worldpanel not only looked at the top 10 brands in the overall UK ranking – all of which are currently food brands – but also at each of the beverage, homecare and health and beauty sectors.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel.

While the amount spent on brands fell in the UK in 2016 as intense competition between the supermarkets brought on falling prices, local brands still outperformed global brands, falling by 1.2% in comparison with a decline of 2.8% for the latter.

In the UK, five of this year’s top 10 brands – Kingsmill, Walkers, Müller, Cadbury Dairy Milk and Cadbury – have seen the frequency with which their goods are picked up off the shelves increase. However, penetration – the percentage of the population buying a brand – has fallen for each of the names included in the British top 10, and overall branded sales have decreased by 1.6% in comparison to private label growth of 1.7%.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “It’s been a challenging year for brands across all FMCG sectors. Consumers are increasingly opting for own-label alternatives across all retailers, and the proportion of the population buying the top 10 branded products has fallen by 2.5% on average.”

He adds: “Brands and manufacturers need to keep pace with changing consumer behaviours if they are to succeed. Today’s shoppers want to be healthier, happier and have their lives made easier, so brands will need to innovate in a way that matches these needs.”

Bolton-based Warburtons leads the UK ranking thanks to 84.2% of the population picking it from supermarket shelves an average of 25.2 times a year.