Startling images reveal the truth about who owns most major brands found in the big two supermarkets
Strolling through the aisles of a Woolies or Coles, shoppers might not realise a stark truth behind the hundreds of individual products on offer.
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A compelling illustration by a graphic design enthusiast has revealed the sheer concentration of ownership of popular brands found in Australian supermarkets.
Strolling through the aisles of a Woolworths or Coles, shoppers might take in the hundreds of individual products on offer and assume there’s a healthy level of competition at play.
But analysis of exactly who owns the food for sale shows several major corporations dominate, each owning the vast majority of brands in key categories.
Reddit user QuantumFluxations13 visited his local Woolies recently, took images of the vast shelves stocked full of multiple products, and overlaid the photo with corporate ownership of each.
The results, which he gave news.com.au permission to republish, are stark.
In the chocolate aisle, global giants and arch rivals Mondelez and Mars each dominated, accounting for about half of the shelf space each.
The average consumer might not be aware that a dozen popular and beloved confectionary brands are owned by a single corporate entity.
Take Mars, which counts among its stable of products Maltesers, M&Ms, Snickers, Skittles, Mars, Milky Way, Pods, Twix, Celebrations and assortment pack Celebrations.
It also has the lion’s share of chewing gum brands, including Eclipse, Extra, Juicy Fruit, and PK.
Mondelez owns the Cadbury and Cadbury Dairy Milk brands and associated products, as well as Toblerone, Cote d’Or and Milka, among others.
Nestle accounted for a smaller space on the shelves but its brands include KitKat, Life Savers, Milky Bar, Crunch and Smarties.
In the section of the supermarket where you’ll find an assortment of chips brands, the concentration of ownership was just as stark.
Pepsico’s products dominated shelf space with big names such as Smith’s, Red Rock Deli, Doritos, Twisties, Burger Rings and Cheetos, to name a few.
Lesser-known conglomerate Pfeifer & Langen was also heavily present with its brands CC’s, Kettle, Samboy, Thins, Natural Chip Co, Cheezels and French Fries.
American icon Kellanova, better known as Kellogg’s, had a smaller share of space with its Pringles range.
But over in the cereal aisle, it absolutely dominated thanks to a broad range of products like Coco Pops, All-Bran, Corn Flakes, Crunchy Nut, Nutri-Grain, Froot Loops, Special K, Rice Bubbles and more.
Also taking pride of place on the shelves were products from Sanitarium, owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including Weet-Bix and its assorted varieties as well as Up & Go.
If you were to combine every single product found in one of the two major supermarkets, the vast majority of items would be owned by one of several companies.
“The major supermarkets have a lot of what we call individual brands, where the consumer doesn’t really know the corporate ownership,” Professor Jack Cadeaux from Sydney’s UNSW Business School said.
“So that’s an old strategy that’s been used for many years – a way of eliminating your competition by buying them up.”
In terms of who owns what, Prof Cadeaux said “it varies drastically from one category to another, broadly food versus non-food”.
For example, Kraft Heinz controls the brands Heinz and Kraft, obviously, as well as Fountain, Cottee’s, Golden Circle, Gravox and Wattie’s.
Goodman Fielder has in its stable Helga’s, Buttercup, Meadow Lea, Gold’n Canola, Paul Newman’s Own, White Wings, Wonder White and Mighty Soft.
Outside of chocolate, Nestle owns everything from lollies icons Allens and Minties to foodstuff megabrand Maggi, pet brands Supercoat and Purina, and baby formula staple Nan.
But in non-food sections of the supermarket, other major players can be found – namely Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Unliver.
When you’re in the market for personal care products, P&G probably owns your favourite brands, such as Braun, Gillette, Tampax, MetaMucil, Vicks, Olay, Old Spice and SK-II.
When it comes to hair, the mega company also dominated with old favourites Pantene, Herbal Essences and Head and Shoulders.
In a similar part of the shop, Unliver has a major share of space thanks to its ownership of Impulse, Dove, Lynx, Rexona, Sunsilk and TRESemme.
Johnson & Johnson has Neutrogena, Aveeno and of course its own mega range under the Johnson’s or Johnson & Johnson brands.
It also owns Band Aid, Benadryl, Zyrtec, Listerine, Carefree, Clean & Clear, Codral, Stayfree, Mylanta and Nicorette.
“An interesting one is toothpaste,” Prof Cadeaux said.
“Colgate is very strong. You see some smaller players there, notably very small niche player like Sensodyne, and the private label or store brands like Coles brand or Woolie’s own brand. But they’re small in that category.”
In North America, the dynamics are completely different where P&G has an “incredibly strong brand” in the form of Crest.
“It has been a major competitor there but it’s completely missing here. Instead, they’ve just given up the category to Colgate.”
But regardless of supermarket category, the end result is that consumers actually don’t have a whole lot of choice – even though there are dozens of ‘different’ brands to choose from in each section.
“It doesn’t matter if you look at biscuits or mayonnaise, a handful of big corporates more or less control things.”
New entrants aspiring to shake things up and offer competition – and choice to consumers – almost always fail, he added.
“Distribution is a big challenge for smaller companies trying to enter the market. Getting your products stocked in the major supermarkets is incredibly hard. In some sense, it’s almost impossible.
“The failure rate is enormously high, and it’s really, really hard to crack it. That’s just the way they operate. And so you see these few major corporate players dominating.”
Originally published as Startling images reveal the truth about who owns most major brands found in the big two supermarkets
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