If you’ve been following the news, and I’m sure you have, you’ve seen or read an article similar to this one which appeared Media Post, Blue Skies Ahead For Private Label . Private-label packaged goods could surge as much as six times the roughly one-point market-share gain already seen since the recession began in December 2007, Jack Neff reports, bolstered by a slowdown in consumer spending that could last from four to 10 years. This sounds scary, if you’ve been building your brand based on a green selling proposition. Then you come across something like piece, this from Ad Age, Private Label Winning the Battle of the Brands , and you wonder how you will survive. Package-goods brands face their greatest crisis and strongest threat from private label since at least the early 1990s. And that’s the good news. The fact is that consumers are more and more eschewing their favorite brands in favor or cheaper, private label versions of their favorite products. Many consumers have caught on and realized that the manufacturer of their favorite branded product is making their store’s private label

product as well. Why pay more, they reason, and maybe you do too, to get the same thing? Why this matters to green and organic products, is that more and more, stores are offering their own brand of organic and green products. And so  now green businesses face the same challenges and pressures with which major consumer package goods manufacturers have struggled for years - How to deal with private label. The Natural Foods Expo West is coming up next week and I’m sure that will be a big topic of conversation. But take heart, I’ve been here before. I spent the last downturn rationalizing lines, developing promotions and creating recession-proof ways to build brands for both for a Fortune 100 company and for a mid-sized company. Both managed to grow their way through the recession. There is something you can do to avoid coming up the loser as consumers flock to private label. Read more of this story »

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5 Ways Green and Organic Brands Can Survive When Consumers Switch to Private Label