👉 Background: Coles is Australia’s second-largest supermarket chain behind the big dawg Woolies. It was spun out of Wesfarmers in 2018 and has more than 800 big-red stores around Australia.

‍👉 What happened: Coles’ supermarkets has seen its sales jump to $9.4 billion in the most recent quarter — a 4.7% on the same time last year (excluding tobacco). The real MVP of this growth has been Coles' online sales which jumped over 25% this quarter to $1.1 billion. Now, the online sales are worth more than 11% of total supermarket sales.

‍👉 What else: But that ain’t the only MVP...because Coles Finest (Coles' boujee private label), also jumped nearly 14% this quarter. And to top things off, more shoppers are now calling Coles their main supermarket - ahead of Woolies, according to UBS. It’s the first time that Coles is above Woolworths in the survey. When it rains, it pours.

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‍What's the key learning?

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‍💡Private label has had a major glow-up in the supermarket space - it’s no longer just the land of cheap biscuits, sad cheeses and basic labels.

💡Coles has rebranded their home-brand ranges into something aspirational and it’s clearly working. In fact, late last year, Coles said their premium home brand was growing at double the speed of overall supermarket sales. For any retailer, private label is attractive because they can avoid paying the markups of third-party brands, while also maintaining healthier profit margins.

💡Coles aren’t the only company to see a spike in private label purchases. According to Nielsen, 46% of Australians say they’re buying more private label products than ever before — in particular, people under the age of 43. So clearly, Coles has capitalised on the opportunities created by the rising demand these products.