Dive Brief:
- Consumers with household incomes above $100,000 are becoming more likely to buy private label groceries despite saying they are increasingly confident about their financial security, according to survey results published this month by management consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal.
- A greater percentage of people in higher-income groups said they are shopping more frequently at lower-priced grocers compared with shoppers who earn less.
- Out of 12 tracked categories in the survey, grocery was the only one where shoppers said they expect to boost spending over the next three months.
Dive Insight:
Higher-income households are growing increasingly secure about their finances and showing a greater willingness to both spend and save, Alvarez & Marsal’s Consumer and Retail Group found in its Consumer Sentiment Survey for fall 2025. People with medium-to-lower incomes, meanwhile, are showing signs of “cautious optimism” about their economic situations, according to the study.
But while people in higher-income brackets indicated that they expect to spend — and earn — more money over the next six months at the fastest pace since 2023, they are also becoming more careful about what to buy, Alvarez & Marsal said in its report.
In a reflection of that trend, more than 82% of shoppers with incomes above $100,000 have increased how often they buy private label products, the report found.
Just over half of respondents to the survey with a household income of at least $100,000 said they buy private label products in grocery stores “very often,” compared with 42% of participants whose incomes are below that level. The shares of survey participants who said they purchase store-brand products “somewhat often” or “sometimes” were also higher among those with higher incomes.
“[W]e are also seeing an increased cautiousness and responsibility in how they spend, making more deliberate tradeoffs regarding where they shop, what brands they buy, and how often they’ll indulge to respond to this challenging economic environment,” Chad Lusk, managing director of Alvarez & Marsal’s Consumer and Retail Group, said in a statement.
Across income groups, 68% of respondents to the survey said they believe private label groceries “offer quality that is as good or better” than national brands and a slightly greater proportion said they believe that store-brand foods are more consistently available on store shelves.
The report also found that discount grocers are appealing to shoppers across income cohorts. Over two-thirds of respondents said they believe the quality and assortments they find in lower-priced grocery stores are comparable to what is available at traditional food retailers. Almost as large a share said they believe lower-priced grocers offer as good a selection as traditional grocers.
While shoppers are gravitating toward private label goods and discounters as they look to save money on groceries, more than a quarter of respondents to the survey believe they will spend more on groceries over the next three months, the survey found.
Tariffs are a key source of stress for shoppers, with a majority of respondents saying that they believe levies on imported goods have pushed up costs. That sentiment is more prevalent among surveyed higher-income shoppers.
Alvarez & Marsal’s findings are based on a survey conducted in August. About 2,200 people responded to the poll.
