Pressure Points: Private Label Growth in Brazilian Retail

Introducing: Pressure Points, a new series about the forces reshaping the game for major industries — from private labels and challenger brands to shifts in shopper behavior and the data gaps nobody talks about enough.

Retail is evolving, and so is the definition of a brand.

Perini, part of Cencosud S.A., just launched a “store in store” concept inside GBarbosa: Empório Perini and Adega Perini, bringing over 300 in-house manufactured products and more than 1,200 wine labels into an already captive shopping environment.

What makes this move especially interesting is that Brazil is actually the least developed private label market in Latin America. According to NIQ, Brazilians allocate only 1% of their annual spending to private label products, while in Colombia that figure exceeds 20%. Here, the category is still in its early stages.

And yet, retailers are already investing in experience, curation, and premium positioning under private labels. They’re not waiting for the market to mature — they’re building that market.

There’s another signal worth noting: in Brazil, it’s the high-income segment leading private label adoption. This isn’t the traditional narrative of the price-driven shopper. It’s a story about quality, trust, and experience — exactly the positioning Perini is going after.

For major industries, the question isn’t just about today’s numbers. It’s about understanding where this movement is heading, and whether their brands are differentiated enough for shoppers to actively choose them as the category becomes more competitive.

This is one of the pressures I’ll be exploring in this series. Because private labels are only part of the story. Challenger brands, fragmented shopper data, and shifting consumption habits are converging at the same time.

The rules aren’t changing. They already have.

In your view, what’s the biggest pressure major industries are underestimating right now? 👇