Shufersal's Quiet Move: The Brands You Might Not Have Known Belong to the Chain
Europe is already there, Israel is far behind: the Shufersal model or the Carrefour model, who will win? Does reducing the power of suppliers only increase the power of the chains themselves?
In Europe, every third product already belongs to a chain. In Israel, the gap is still large, but Carrefour, Rami Levy, and Yohananof are expanding their private label shares, and Shufersal is quietly building a broad strategy under the radar, inspired by the international Aldi model, which reduces its dependence on manufacturers and agencies that exploit the market's concentration. A price check examines how real the savings are, and when they are not, and raises a poignant question: does reducing the power of suppliers only increase the power of the chains themselves, and when, if at all, will we feel it in our pockets.
The Israeli consumer loves to talk about price. He compares, looks for promotions, moves between chains, and complains, rightly, about every price increase. But when he stands in front of the shelf, often his hand reaches for the coffee he knows, the cornflakes the children are used to, and the cleaning agent that has been in the house for years. This is one of the interesting paradoxes of the Israeli food market: the cost of living is in almost every consumer conversation, and yet the private label, one of the most significant tools that chains have to create an alternative to the big brands, still does not reach the status in Israel that it has achieved in Europe.
Europe buys the chain's brand
NielsenIQ data collected for the PLMA organization show that in 2025, private label sales in 17 European markets reached about 387 billion euros, a financial share of 38.8% of the grocery market. In 8 countries, the share has already crossed 40%, and in Switzerland, it stands at more than half the market. This success does not stem only from a low price: chains like Aldi and Lidl built their model on exclusive products where they set specifications, reduce choice, and put their name and reputation behind every product.
In Israel, the State Comptroller's report showed that the share of the private label from the total sales of food and consumer products rose moderately between 2014 and 2022 and reached only 6.9%. However, the chains' own reports show a different picture: Rami Levy reported for 2025 a private label share of 26.44%, Shufersal reported 20.6% in the first quarter of 2026, and Yohananof reports about 27.5% in the categories where it is active.
Shufersal's strategy: hidden brands
Unlike the traditional private label that is openly labeled with the chain's name, Shufersal has quietly built a whole network of supposedly independent house brands: "Interia" for noodles, "Beit Yehuda" for canned goods, "XPO" for descalers, "Monro" for breakfast cereals, "Seychelles" for grooming, "Gidron" for frozen pastries, "Naji" for Turkish coffee, and more. None of these names hint that it is Shufersal. This is exactly the Aldi and Lidl model, where each category gets a dedicated brand instead of one sweeping label.
The move does not remain only within Shufersal branches. In recent years, the chain has expanded the "Shufersal Business" activity and opened a wholesale branch in a cash&carry format, where it also markets its private label products. Thus, products that until now were available only to Shufersal customers may also reach the neighborhood grocery store, which turns the private label from a tool for internal customer retention into a distribution tool.
Price check: how real are the savings?
A price check conducted by the Retail Research Institute on 59 products shows an average gap of about 56.7% in favor of Shufersal's house brand versus the known equivalent. However, in three products the gap was smaller than 10%, and in three others the house brand was more expensive: Shufersal's vegetarian corn schnitzel was sold for about 12.7% more than Zoglovek, private label diapers were 4.6% more expensive than Pampers, and Shufersal's hummus salad was sold for 26% more than a competing alternative.
In summary: the real gap is in the question, not just in the price. In Israel, we ask if the private label is cheaper, in Europe they ask if the chain's product is better for me. This is the real gap.
