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The US private label food market - forecasts to 2013: 2009 edition: Market overview

Packaged fresh produce
In contrast, private labels account for less than 2% of sales within convenience stores, although this represents a possible area of future growth. Not only are larger retail groups such as Safeway experimenting with smaller store formats, but convenience store operators such as 7-Eleven have launched private label ranges. As a result, private label products in convenience stores are believed to be growing by around 20% per annum. According to Nielsen, "the convenience channel has an opportunity to develop their own store brands using private label benchmarks at supermarkets and drug stores". ...Although the US has a very large retail market for fresh produce, the majority of items are sold unbranded, and therefore fall outside the scope this report. However, one exception to this is packaged items, a category largely made up of pre-packaged fruit, vegetables and salads. Most of these products are either branded or private label. Sales within this sector have experienced fairly consistent growth over the last decade as consumers look to increase their intake of fruit and vegetables, although the market was hit by scares over possible contamination of raw salads with the e-coli virus in 2005.
In 2008, the US market for private label packaged fresh produce was worth US$2.2bn. This represents over 17% of the market as a whole, where private label trails leading suppliers such as Dole and the Fresh Express brand owned by Chiquita. Another leading producer is River Ranch Fresh Foods, which supplies almost 45% of the private label sector. Many food retailers have increased the amount of fresh produce stocked in recent years – for example, The Produce Stand found in Safeway stores offers a wide variety of items, such as packaged vegetable stir-fries.