South African households reeling under the high cost of living are switching to no-name brands, which are more affordable and are improving in quality. Kelly Mac Innes, market insights lead for Nielsen IQ in South Africa, told Business Times many consumers can no longer afford to routinely buy branded products. "The popularity [of no-name brands] is definitely raised by the cost of living," she said."We see that we are still in a relatively high unemployment rate. A lot of the South African economy relies on grants, and it’s due to the high unemployment rate. A lot of the economy is really struggling."We know we’ve hit a wage stagnation where the cost of living has gone up higher than wages across the board."According to Nielsen IQ’s 2025 global outlook on private label and branded products, private labels sales amounted to almost R100bn in South Africa last year, a 7.5% year-on-year increase. They accounted for about 18% of total fast-moving consumer goods sales for the ...
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