Private label in Australian grocery is no longer a cheap fill at the bottom of the bay. Category managers already know that. The harder question is who you brief when the own-brand slate grows: a factory, or an importer who can build across markets without pretending to be the plant.
Shiiv Imports Pty Ltd trades as Shiiv Imports. We are a sourcing agent, importer and private-label builder, not a manufacturer. We do not name major-chain private-label clients. This note is about the market, and about what that market asks of a buyer’s supply choice.
The number, with the source attached
Circana figures, reported by the Australian Marketing Institute in July 2025, put private-label brands at 36 per cent of Australia’s CPG / FMCG sales at the end of 2024, up 4.8 per cent year on year and worth $46 billion in sales. The same AMI report, still citing Circana, contrasted that with 39 per cent share in Europe and 22 per cent in the United States.
Food and beverage did the heavy lifting. Circana, again via AMI, put food and beverage private label at 39 per cent share in Australia. Figures to the end of November 2024 showed the highest private-label value shares in meat and seafood (82 per cent), produce (63 per cent) and bakery (55 per cent). Those last three are a reminder that “private label” is not one category. A pantry import and a protein bay are different jobs.
We are not restating Circana’s full dataset. We are using the figures AMI published in that July 2025 knowledge-hub piece, because they are public, dated and attributed. If a later Circana cut moves the share, the directional point for a category manager does not: own-brand is a large, growing slice of the basket, and retailers are funding it as a strategy, not only as a price reaction.
What the growth actually asks of a category desk
When own-brand was a value-only play, the brief was simple: match a hero SKU, hit a unit cost, keep the pack honest. AMI’s reporting, and the Circana commentary it quotes, describes a shift away from price as the only reason to buy. Retailers are building value through to premium, with more attention on quality, innovation and shopper data.
That change lands on the category manager as three practical problems:
- More SKUs, across more tiers, without a matching increase in headcount on the supply desk.
- Specs that now include claims, origin, pack finish and food-safety evidence, not only a cost file.
- A need to move from brief to warehouse on a calendar that still looks like “this half”, not “next financial year”.
None of that requires you to name a banner in a supplier meeting. It does require you to decide whether each new own-brand line needs a dedicated factory relationship, or a partner who already runs briefs across a grocery set.
Importer versus manufacturer
A manufacturer is the right call when you need a plant that lives and dies on one process: a dairy site, a bakery with a locked oven line, a protein business with its own livestock story. You go there for depth. You accept that the plant’s capacity, its GFSI certificate and its MOQ are the constraints.
An importer is the right call when the slate is a grocery set, not a single process. Drinks, wafers, rice cups, sauces, frozen potato, spices: that is a map of makers, not one roof. Shiiv Imports sources across eight markets and builds own-brands on the same path as branded sourcing. The catalogue categories are the range we already know how to brief. The private-label journey is brief, sample, approve, deliver. Typical time to a first Australian warehouse drop is about 90 days. That is an operating pattern, not a factory tour.
The buyer risk with a manufacturer is concentration: one site, one certificate, one delay. The buyer risk with a thin importer is opacity: a trading company that cannot show the plant, the label method or the recall test. The useful test is not “importer or factory”. It is “can this partner put a quality file on the table, and can they name how the food is made without pretending they made it?”
The GFSI wording trap
As own-brand grows, ranging packs get more legal. That is healthy. It is also where language slips. A plant may hold a GFSI-benchmarked certificate. An importer may hold ISO 9001 for its own quality system. Makers in a network may run HACCP. Those are three different sentences.
We say this plainly, including about ourselves. Partners hold plant certifications. Shiiv Imports is not the factory. We keep audit reports on file, we prepare FSANZ labels, we track batches and we test a 24-hour recall plan. The buyer checklist is the longer version. If a prospective partner blurs those lines in a first meeting, ask them to un-blur them before you range.
What “importer advantage” means in practice
Advantage is an easy word. Here it means four things a category manager can check:
- One brief across a set. Value, mid and premium can share a desk, a recall plan and an NDA path, even when the makers differ.
- Australian label and border as a default. The pack is written for FSANZ and country of origin, not converted from an export carton after the container lands.
- MOQs set per line, not per ego. A house rule of “one container or nothing” is a factory talking. Order sizes should follow the product and the channel. See the MOQ FAQ.
- Reach you can verify without a client list. We ship to 10,000+ stores through Australia’s largest independent grocery wholesaler. We still will not name major-chain private-label clients here.
There is no advantage in being vague. If you need a single-site manufacturer, brief one. If you need a grocery own-brand program that can move across categories and markets, brief an agent who already lands product in Australia and who will stay in their lane on certificates.
What to do with this on Monday
Take one own-brand gap on your slate. Write the brief as if you were sending it tomorrow: product, tier, channel, volume, target price. Ask two partners, a plant and an importer, for a sample path, a label method, a batch and recall note, and a named quality contact for the NDA pack. Compare the files, not the adjectives.
If the importer path is the one that fits, start a private-label brief or start a sourcing brief. If you want the mechanics first, read how a private-label brief works with a sourcing agent.
Source for market figures: Australian Marketing Institute, “First they copied product, now they’re lifting the whole playbook”, July 2025, citing Circana (private-label share of Australia’s CPG / FMCG sales at end-2024: 36 per cent, +4.8 per cent year on year, $46 billion; Europe 39 per cent; United States 22 per cent; food and beverage 39 per cent share in Australia; meat and seafood 82 per cent, produce 63 per cent, bakery 55 per cent to end-November 2024). AMI knowledge hub. Shiiv Imports Insights. Shiiv Imports Pty Ltd (ABN 15 158 243 442 / ACN 158 243 442).