Earlier this year, our very own Polina Oba and Barbara Sexton spent some time in London, hitting those retail hotspots for our latest supermarket safari.

They came back with a ton of photos and one strong takeaway about private label: that it doesn't look or act like your grandma's private label anymore.

So, there's a lot of M&S in here, but I promise that's not favoritism. It's because M&S is almost entirely its own brand. One estimate puts around 95% of its grocery range under its own labels, which makes it an unusually good specimen for testing how far a retailer's own name can stretch.

And there's plenty of room to stretch. The UK is already one of the world's most mature private-label grocery markets, accounting for 52% of units sold and around 44% share by value. So the question isn't why British shoppers buy private label, because clearly they do. It's what retailers are doing with all that shelf space now that they have it.

Let's start with this one, because subtle it ain't. It brought my scrolling through the photos to a dead halt, mainly because that hot pink and neon packaging with the cognitive health claim gave me a bit of cognitive dissonance. I'm more used to the calm pastel colors and this one subverted my expectations.

M&S's Brain Food Brain Ball is a mixed berry and date snack with an almond butter filling and a raspberry powder coating, with added iron, zinc, and vitamin B12. It was launched in Jan 2025 and sold more than 115,000 units in its first month alone. In its first year, it apparently outsold every Food on the Move product, including bottled water.

Not bad, eh?

I asked GourmetPro expert Rob Bugler, a UK-based innovation and product specialist, why we were seeing products like this. He punctured my obvious narrative and told me that retailers aren't turning into visionary trendsetters. “They're foreseeing what the big trends are and doing pretty much seasonal pushes. If it sticks, then they build on it.”

He also pointed out that retailers now have the marketing muscle to back these launches properly, with a full shop and media plan that can amplify a product from day one.

The bit that interested me far more than the snack itself is that M&S decided brain health was a territory worth building a food range around in the first place. The retailer didn't just drop one functional snack onto a shelf and see what happened. Instead, it built a broader proposition around nutrients associated with brain health (the vits and mins), spanning different products and eating occasions. Including this smoothie with that dubious color (what is that even?!).

This range sits within an even wider push into health-focused areas such as gut health, high protein, nutrient density, and what M&S itself has labelled “biohacking”. It's a fascinating place to arrive if your mental picture of private label is still “supermarket copies popular branded product and sells it for less”. (There have been accusations that some of this innovation looks familiar, but that's a fight for another day.)

Brain Food is hardly the only example.

Take M&S's Marksologist canned cocktails or its CHOC chocolate range. Yes, the M&S name is on the pack, but it isn't necessarily the first thing you notice. Instead, you get the distinctive Marksologist and Choc names, with bold colors and distinct packaging, designed to look entirely at home alongside branded products in their categories (and just a wee bit Gen Z coded?).

And then there are the categories themselves. Chocolate and alcohol are not the obvious places to hide behind a generic supermarket label. These are categories where brands have traditionally done well because shoppers buy into things like image and perceived quality, not simply price.

Yet M&S (and many other retailers in the UK) isn't approaching them as the cheaper supermarket version of something else. The packaging is eye-catching, premium-looking, and built around visual conventions of the category. The retailer name is still there to provide reassurance, but it no longer has to do all the heavy lifting.

Tesco is doing something similar with its own-label RTD cocktails, where the packaging and claims are very much in line with the rest of the category rather than screaming “LOOK, VALUE OPTION!” from a mile away.

Taken together, these are fairly big changes.

Private label works very comfortably when the product is familiar and consumers don't need much convincing. Like flour or canned tomatoes. But gut health, premium cocktails, and chocolate are different. These are spaces where specialist brands have traditionally had more room to justify themselves through expertise, image, or emotional appeal.

Which raises a slightly uncomfortable question for the brands sitting next to them on shelves. If the retailer already has trust, distribution, shopper data, shelf control, and brand-like products of its own, how much protection does simply being a “brand” really provide?

One of the old assumptions around private label was that brands did the innovating and retailers followed along later with their own-label versions once a product or trend had proved itself. That distinction needs a bit of updating.

As Rob pointed out earlier, retailers don't need to invent the next big consumer shift. They just need to spot which ones are gaining momentum, decide whether they fit their strategy, and move early enough to build around them.

Take M&S's Nutrient Dense range, one of the five key trends highlighted in the retailer's 2026 Health Trends Report. M&S is actively building products around these health areas:

M&S's Only X Ingredients range is another version of this, stripping products back to a short ingredient list in response to growing concern around ultraprocessed foods. Rob said that whether or not everyone agrees with individual propositions, such as non-fortified cereals, it shows that innovation can be led by both trend and customer closeness, taking a bold position and executing it well. The range spans over 30 products, covering bread, chocolate, condiments, snacks, ice cream, sausages, oat milk, and breakfast cereal.

Rob also pointed to another advantage for retailers here. They can think beyond a single product, which makes this much broader and more strategic than conventional category innovation.

A brand may be brilliant at sauces or snacks or ice cream. A retailer can start with a broader consumer proposition and then stretch it across categories. Waitrose's partnership with chef Yotam Ottolenghi is a good example. Rob highlighted how the range moves across categories, from sauces and condiments into even premium ice cream, all tied together by distinctive flavors and specialist credibility that lift the range above everyday fare.

This breadth helps Waitrose own a premium at-home food occasion, not just a category. And because the products are exclusive, the collaboration itself becomes a reason to choose this retailer.

M&S's Gastropub range includes dishes developed with chef Tom Kerridge, leaning into premium pub-style comfort food. Most retailers have some version of such exclusive offerings.

Private label is also competing for bigger occasions, not just individual product choices. A ready meal used to be easy to think about as a product category. It was “supermarket version vs. branded version”. But one look at the amount of prepared food UK retailers now offer makes this feel like the wrong comparison.

Rob noted that different retailers use private label to own different occasions. Waitrose is very much about foodies, high quality, discovering new flavors, and creating great food moments. M&S is similar, but skews a bit more naturally health-oriented and, because of its store formats, more food-to-go.

Retailers are now building enough choice around mains, sides, snacks, and treats to make the supermarket a credible alternative to ordering in or eating out. Especially important, as Rob pointed out, since consumers may be cutting back on restaurants but still want those little luxuries and restaurant-style experiences at home.

That also explains why so much of this food doesn't particularly look like compromise food. This pizza range from Waitrose for example is colorful, indulgent, and designed much more like a treat-night proposition than something you reluctantly microwave.

This is yet another big shift in private label — the move beyond necessity. Retailers know that these products need to compete on more than just convenience and price.

And this isn't confined to health or premium meals. Across UK retailers, own label is getting much more specific. It's spanning regional cuisines, specialist dietary products, niche formats, and categories that might once have been left to smaller or specialist brands. None of these products is individually revolutionary. It's just really interesting how comfortable retailers have become going this narrow.

Own label can build distinct propositions, move earlier on emerging needs, stretch across categories, compete for occasions, and adapt as regulation and health expectations change the brief. And for suppliers, it's no longer enough to be able to make the product. The more useful question is whether you can help the retailer work out what the product should be. Something we'll be touching upon in next week's Market Shake, so stay tuned!

If Market Shake’s been worth it this year, the tip jar would love a round on you. 😉 No pressure at all, though. Market Shake stays free, always.

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