Over the past few years, shoppers in US supermarkets have been confronted by ever brighter displays of popular consumer brands, from Duracell batteries to Pepsi-Cola. But the US's largest stores are now making more space on their shelves for cheaper and plainer fare.
As global consumer-products companies struggle with a slowdown in consumer spending, private-label products, also known as own-label or storebrand products, are rapidly stealing market share from established brands, on which millions of marketing dollars have been lavished.
Own-brand products are usually priced well below their branded equivalents. But private label is no longer competing on price alone. Exclusive deals with big retailers and heavy investment in product innovation have also made private-label brands more attractive for shoppers.
The current slowdown has encouraged US retailers to devote fresh attention to a part of their business that offers higher-than-average profit margins and a chance to differentiate themselves from their rivals. A JP Morgan analysis of the grocery industry found this month that store brands are gaining market share in 55 of the 61 categories it monitored.
"This represents the strongest month for private label in the past four years," says Ms Erika Long, the group's US food analyst.
Mr Lee Scott, chief executive of Wal-Mart, said last month that the softening US economy was encouraging its customers to gravitate towards its private-label and lower-priced brands. Wal-Mart and other retailers are explicitly adjusting to take advantage of this trend.
Kmart, the second-largest discount retailer, has announced plans to double the number of private-label offerings in its stores to 1,600 items.
Such trends pose a challenge for the makers of branded goods. Most national retailers are already unwilling to stock a broader selection than the top two brands in any category and their own alternative, but even market leaders are seeing their shares eroded in some categories.
The businesses suffering most from the incursion of private labels are often those where the market leader has stumbled and failed to keep an old product up to date, such as Campbell's Soup. In part, this is because private label has shed its cheap-and-cheerful image and large stores such as Wal-Mart have invested heavily to ensure that their own-branded produce keeps up with innovations.
On rare occasions, private-label suppliers have even beaten their branded rivals to the punch. Co-operative Group, the British retailer, rushed out liquid detergent capsules before Procter & Gamble and Unilever, the two giants of the laundry industry, could bring their new products to market.
Mr Dan Barry of Merrill Lynch says retailers are focusing on investing in such innovations more than ever. "The quality of private-label goods is dramatically better than it was 10 years ago. But private-label goods serve another purpose for retailers - they are using it at the opening price level, where the branded guys don't have what they need."
In short, as companies such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever have sought to increase returns by focusing on high-margin, top-of-the-range goods, they have neglected the cheaper end of the market. Private-label manufacturers have been happy to step into the breach, particularly as consumers have become more price sensitive.
Consumer-branded companies are also responding by seeking private-label status for some of their products. Retailers such as Target and manufacturers such as P&G have signed agreements ensuring that certain products will appear only in certain stores. While store brands are gaining significant ground in the US, they have never been as large a force in North America as they have in much of Europe.
Dutch retailer Ahold says private label contributes one-third of its revenues in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, compared with just one-fifth in the US. In Britain, own-label goods often account for more than half of a supermarket's sales.
