The latest company trading updates suggest that the US market for private label products continues to grow at a greater rate than the overall food and drink market, but that the trend away from national brands has softened in recent quarters. US consumers have generally been slower to embrace private labels than their European counterparts, however, the global economic slowdown... 2010-03-18

US wholesale major Costco is to accelerate its Australian store opening programme. Having entered the market in mid-2009, the company intends to open five or six stores over the next three years. Two stores per year could be judged as a modest pace of expansion and yet BMI actually views it as quite aggressive given the scale of Costco stores and the saturated state of Australian... 2010-03-17

Israel's second-largest mass grocery retailer (MGR) by market share Blue Square has reported a 3.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) increase in fourth quarter (three months to December 31 2009) sales to ILS1.81bn (US$490mn). Boosted by outperforming non-food sales which strengthened 7.3% y-o-y, the promising fourth quarter performance somewhat compensated for a tough H110 (financial year)... 2010-03-17

BMI has introduced headline food consumption and mass grocery retail (MGR) forecasts to 2014 for Qatar as we prepare to launch quarterly food and drink reports for the Gulf state. Largely based on household expenditure data, which is notable for the proportion of expenditure spent on food and drink, compiled by the Qatar Statistics Authority, the forecasts underline the level... 2010-03-18

French retail multinational Carrefour has acquired five outlets in Spain from local operator Supermercado de Madrid. The units are to be consolidated into the Carrefour Express supermarket network and will bring the firm's total number of supermarkets in the country to 107. The move comes despite Carrefour's Spanish outlets registering a significant like-for-like sales decline... 2010-03-18