GourmetPro will be at SIAL!
My lovely colleague Barbara Sexton and I will be at the show and we'd love to catch up over a coffee and a chat if you're there. DM us on LinkedIn: Barbara or Ranjana.
And if there's anything we should check out (a booth or product or category), reply to this email or send us a DM. Tips very welcome…
A couple of weeks ago, we rummaged around private label shelves in the UK and found retailers building ranges with the confidence and imagination we usually associate with brands. But somebody still has to make all those products.
Perhaps you already have the equipment, or capacity you'd quite like to fill. The retailer owns the relationship with the shopper. Surely making its products is an easier way onto the shelf than building a brand from scratch?
I asked GourmetPro expert Damien Cambefort, who has spent 35 years in the business, whether that was true in France. “Not at all,” he said. “Lots of companies want to start operating in France now. Most don't do it right and won't succeed.”
Our conversation went from product development and factory volumes to the peculiar habits of French retailers. Here are the parts of the conversation that a manufacturer considering France ought to know.
And many thanks to Barbara for all the product photos in this piece!
You need something worth selling
France already has plenty of specialist private-label manufacturers. A branded food company with spare capacity is competing with suppliers who know the categories and the buyers. Damien calls the work “the old merchant way”. The retailer owns the label and the relationship with the shopper, while the manufacturer has to bring it something worth selling. In France, that becomes especially clear at the category review, where a supplier is expected to arrive with more than a factory and a price.
Carrefour Sensation’s Crocks parked above Kellogg’s Trésor is pretty much the same product, except for the price. This is the Sensation proposition in a nutshell: compete with the branded product’s appeal and make the price hard to ignore.
Although retailers want the innovation on their shelves, they don't develop it themselves. There are no real product specialists inside retail companies anymore. Buyers and so-called product managers don't develop products or concepts. The idea usually comes from the manufacturer, complete with a price and a technical solution.
Innovation also has a season. Private label specialists in France pitch at category reviews twice a year, roughly April to June and September to October, “before price negotiations”. That's when they propose new items, formats, flavors, and pure innovation.
Retailers are looking at whether there is a need among consumers or if they can create a need with a product or a concept.
Manufacturers who aren't private label specialists can still get the call, but it is more likely to work when they bring “something different that the retailer couldn't get from its standard private label partners.” That might also give a branded manufacturer room to try a product it would not launch under its own name. For a newcomer pitching a line in France, Damien's advice is to “Be a partner, present yourself as a partner, behave as a partner.” Bring the retailer a response to a gap in its range, with a price and a technical solution. Be candid about whether your existing lines can make it, whether they need adapting, or whether it would require new capacity.
You could walk past these premium desserts from the Sensation range without even realizing that they are a Carrefour own label. These look like products trying to win the impulse purchase on their own merits. Both products look very much like very popular branded sweet treats, and that may be on purpose (probably maybe)!
Liégeois is a familiar French dessert: a creamy base with a whipped topping, the sort of thing many people grew up eating. Carrefour Sensation has made a coconut milk version and put it in the plant-based cabinet. That’s what makes this one interesting. Rather than offer another plain dairy version, Carrefour has taken a childhood dessert into a space that, until recently, was much more the territory of specialist brands.
But this isn't without caveats. Once your proposal is on the table, the retailer sometimes looks around to see whether someone can beat your proposal. And what's simple gets copied very quickly. In the beverages category for example, there are many copycat products.
No email needed!
Market movers
French retail isn't one buyer either. The approach each retailer has is very different and it can affect quite heavily the way they deal with private label.
Want to know more about France's top retailers? Our GourmetPro blog has a deeper look at the biggest supermarket groups in the country.
The discounters
Aldi. In France, Aldi has decided to remain a pure hard discounter. “They're a pure follower. They rarely launch a new product or propose anything specific to the market.” That, he says, is how they want French customers to see them. You cover the basics and can propose almost anything, and then it's a matter of price, timing, and volume. A deal with Aldi is always a closed deal. The contract fixes a volume and you're obliged to supply it. If they want anything above that, they ask you to confirm you have the capacity. It can be an in-and-out promotional operation or a permanent listing, which is a yearly contract. Go to Aldi if you make basics, can win on price, and can guarantee a fixed volume. Don't go with a premium or innovative product.
Lidl. Lidl runs a fairly similar model in every European country it operates in. It started as a strict hard discounter and has moved to soft discount, with better product quality, better perception, and stores whose organization, look, and atmosphere has changed significantly over the years.
What the two discounters share: Both commit to real volumes, because that's the model they use. As a manufacturer, it gives you a firm volume and lets you set the right price for it. Their overall margin is about 25%, and lower on pure private label, against 33-35% for other retailers.
The generalists
“Within Europe, France is an old lady with her habits,” Damien told me. “She likes to dress a certain way and doesn't change her glasses.” He sees that most clearly in the big generalists. Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarché and Auchan still follow a fairly standard private label model. They announce strategies for the next 2-3 years - for example, organic may be a priority, then two years later it's switched to something else. The stated priority changes more readily than their way of working.
Carrefour has several private-label answers to something as ordinary as grated cheese. Reflets de France (on the right) is a premium private label brand but you could easily miss that. It looks very much like a specialist brand. Put the branded EntreMont pack next to the Reflets de France and the price positioning becomes clearer. Both use regional cues, but the price is significantly different.
Carrefour Simple, Classic, and Bio cover the retailer’s budget, everyday and organic purchases respectively, highlighting how retailers in France are looking to cater to different consumer needs.
The butter shelf repeats the idea. The branded Isigny Sainte-Mère’s churned butter with Guérande salt is at the premium end of the spectrum, in line with Reflets de France’s (Carrefour own brand) churned-butter and Guérande salt at a lower price. Carrefour also has a regular butter and a much more affordable Simple pack. Even the own-label range that looks and sounds premium sits below the branded option in pricing.
Intermarché: It stands out because it makes so much itself. It has an integrated fishing and processing operation. It has its own livestock for part of its meat, and its own charcuterie, pizza, and vegetable production. Intermarché has made private label a key focus area for growth. The retailer has said that it aims to offer around 30 innovations exclusive to its own brand by 2027, an average of one new product every two weeks. For this retailer, stay away in the categories it makes itself and focus on those that it doesn't make itself.
Monoprix: Not one of the top three, but it has approached private label differently for some years. Damien calls it a brand in many respects, in clothing as well as food. Its daily food banner “has entered everyone's mind in city centers” as the place where you can find almost anything and it will be good quality.
Monoprix offers a range of cuisine options from different parts of the world under its own brand.
Coopérative U: This is a group of 1,200 independent retailers. Much the same on a larger scale, with a really strong private label strategy. Some products are shared with other retailers through the same manufacturers, but it also has lines of its own. There is a strong 'Made in France' positioning within private label. All of the U branded milk, beef, pork, turkey, and chicken are of French origin. 70% of U-branded food products in which an agricultural raw material makes up more than 50% of the composition are exclusively French.
Damien cautions that with everyone except the discounters, be careful with the first volume figure. Retailers are obliged to give you volume information, but the number you get at the start of a program “is never right, because retailers understate it to avoid committing.” On some of his recent projects he was told 30,000-40,000 units a year when the market potential was closer to 300,000. In his experience, Aldi and Lidl are more upfront about volumes they need.
Retailer | Who buys or runs the tender? |
|---|---|
E.Leclerc | Scamark develops and commercializes E.Leclerc’s own-label ranges, including Marque Repère, the second most popular food brand in France. |
Intermarché/Netto, Auchan, Casino (Monoprix, Franprix) | Aura Retail Private Label is the 10-year joint purchasing cooperation agreement among these three retailers, with buyers who source suppliers, manage own-label tenders, and negotiate purchasing terms. Aura was implemented during the 2025 commercial negotiations and covers food products from manufacturer brands and retailer own-label. It also is involved in the negotiation of international services and is part of a broader cooperation at European level, through European purchasing group EVEREST. Intermarché uses its own integrated industrial division, Agromousquetaires, and a network of over 359 partner SMEs. |
Carrefour, Coopérative U | Carrefour has its own private-label purchasing and product teams. Its Concordis alliance with Coopérative U (and German retailer RTG) concerns manufacturer brands in the currently documented arrangement. The agreement covers the purchase of manufacturer brand products and the negotiation of international services. Concordis started with the 2026 negotiations and will initially run for a six-year term. Coopérative U negotiates supply for its U-brand ranges through its own French buying organization. |
Aldi France | Aldi’s own purchasing and offer team runs private label tenders. Its buying director says these are mostly annual, depending on the product, and considers volume need, quality, and price. |
Casino Group's collapse is still playing out and it has sold many stores, and Auchan has transferred a lot of its stores to Intermarché. If you already supply both banners, Damien says, a transfer shouldn't hurt you, because your volumes move across. But expect 6-9 months of uncertainty. “Customer habits don't convert immediately,” and volumes can drop before recovering, but manufacturers can win them back if the new banner performs better than the old one.
If you only supplied the old banner, the risk is immediate. The new owner already has someone in your category, and you may simply lose your products. It's also an opening, but it is likely to be a brand new tender. Manufacturers will need to show credentials and prove they're doing better than the current supplier.
Getting onto the shelf takes time
I asked Damien whether making private label was an easier way into French retail than bringing in a brand. “Not at all.” A brand, he said, is ready to go. With private label, you still have to create the item, check its quality and regulatory compliance, develop and produce the packaging, check the first supply, and get it onto the shelf. His estimate is “12-18 months as a strict minimum”.
He has seen estimates stretch to 18-24 months. Part of the problem is on the retailer's side: since around 2020-21, many have cut the quality and sales support teams that used to manage listings. There are fewer people to move a new product through all those checks.
And then you have to live with the calendar
Damien describes late October to February as France's annual round of commercial negotiations. It comes after the category reviews where manufacturers pitch new products. Getting a listing is only the beginning of your dealings with the retailer.
He understands why France has rules governing that relationship. He remembers manufacturers being, as he puts it, “killed by retail”. If one banner makes up 50, 60, or 70% of your sales, what do you do when it squeezes your price or drops you? “You can't refuse, or your lines stop and you lose a lot of money. A vicious circle.”
For food made to a retailer's private label specification, French law now requires contracts to deal with some of those vulnerabilities. The volumes the retailer expects to buy, price changes linked to certain agricultural inputs, and what happens to finished products and packaging when the relationship ends.
Sensation has also gotten into the protein desserts space, once again playing in the branded products’ sandbox.
Where a manufacturer has room to move
Damien uses biscuits to explain how he thinks about the opportunity. Every country has a set of products that are “very cultural”, the familiar biscuits shoppers expect to find in any supermarket. He calls these primary products. Retailers need them, but there is little to distinguish one supplier's offer from another's. If all you bring is the capacity to turn ingredients into a simple product, price becomes the argument. “You can't have 10 manufacturers fighting over one very simple line.”
Move a little away from that core range and you reach his secondary products: a different format, perhaps, or a change to the ingredients. There is room for another producer to come in with a variation. It still has to be a useful variation, though.
The tertiary products are where he sees more room for a manufacturer's ideas. Each retailer wants to show a difference here, and each handles these products in its own way. A manufacturer who knows its category can bring something the retailer has not already got from its usual suppliers. “It's not the biggest part of the private label market,” Damien said, “but it exists.”
Carrefour gives its own label breakfast biscuits several shelves of its own directly above BelVita. A retailer needs a convincing range in a category shoppers already know. There’s plenty of space on the shelf, but a manufacturer offering another version of a standard breakfast biscuit still has to give Carrefour a reason to choose it.
Carrefour Sensation has even pushed into protein bars, with chocolate and fruit versions sat alongside the more familiar cereal bars.
Protein is everywhere now, but what’s striking here is how seriously Carrefour is building out its own range, at prices Barbara found surprisingly well positioned. This is the sort of space where a supplier can bring a recipe or format to the conversation, rather than just another factory capable of making bars.
This is only the tip of the French private label iceberg – Damien could have kept me busy for several more issues of Market Shake. If there's something specific you're curious about, hit reply and send us your question. We read and answer every email, and we'd be happy to get Damien's take for you!
No email needed!
⚡What did you think of today's Market Shake?⚡
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.
Made with ❤️ by GourmetPro - your network of Food & Beverage experts, on demand.
👉 P.S.: GourmetPro is also on LinkedIn!
