Publix and Private Label: How a Grocery Giant Packages Store Brands That Deliver Quality, Value, and Reliability

By Patrick Henry

To generations of people in the South, going food shopping has meant paying regular visits to the local outlet of Publix Super Markets Inc. The 75-year-old chain comprises 875 stores in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Publix employs 136,000 people and operates food manufacturing plants and distribution centers throughout the region it serves. With retail sales of $18.6 billion in 2004, the Fortune 500 company is one of the 10 largest volume supermarket chains in the U.S.

Sales of store brands contribute significantly to the turnover, and designing the packaging for these products is an activity that the company takes as seriously as any of its other business strategies. To learn more about how Publix manages brand identities for its proprietary lines, Package Design interviewed Tim Cox, director of the in-house Creative Services group, and Maria Brous, director of media and community relations, at Publix corporate headquarters in Lakeland, FL.

The Publix store brands for which the Creative Services group creates packaging are the Traditional Publix brand, Publix Premium brand, Publix GreenWise Market brand, and Publix Deli, Bakery, and Pharmacy brands. Brous says, "We believe our customers appreciate the opportunity to choose either a national brand item or a Publix private label item at significant savings. Our Publix brand items generally offer an everyday savings of 10% to 30% compared to the national brands."

Exceptions can occur when a national brand manufacturer runs a promotion for a specific item for a short period. But the commitment Publix makes to its customers, says Brous, is always to offer them good values every day with "private-label products that offer value while increasing our variety of brands and prices."

Publix is not averse to using many bright colors to grab attention.

Just good not good enough

This means that focus of the Publix branding strategy is to offer items that are as good as—if not better than—the national brands. As a result, says Brous, all store-branded items undergo a stringent review process that includes identifying product specifications; soliciting multiple samples from numerous suppliers; and conducting taste or performance testing, both internally and through independent labs.

Publix sources many of its products from national suppliers that frequently offer the same items under their own brands. The chain also purchases from suppliers that exclusively produce private label-items, with an emphasis on exceeding the specifications of comparable branded products.

According to Brous, the supplier review process is focused on, in order, quality, price, and consistent supply to Publix. "We conduct reverse auctions for most of our product lines," she says. "Basically, we establish our standards for the product, and then allow qualified suppliers to bid for the business. This helps ensure the best price for our customers." Then, sample testing confirms whether or not the products meet Publix's strict requirements.

"There have been times where we did not choose the lowest bidder because they could not meet our specifications," says Brous. "We also conduct annual testing of all of our products, more frequently if necessary. We track complaints and notify suppliers for quick resolutions."

Publix adapts its private label approach to the category, and a direct and clear approach is often the best strategy.

From five to 50

Making sure that these high expectations are reflected in the look of every package bearing the Publix name is the responsibility of the Creative Services group, which was formed in 1989 with five people. Today, says Cox, the group consists of about 50 associates including designers, copywriters, production artists, and packaging specialists, with various coordinators and managers overseeing different processes within the group. Besides package design, Creative Services handles corporate identity; advertising print collateral such as price/item ads, brand ads, direct mail, brochures, and in-store POP; and retail environmental graphics.

Cox says that each Publix store brand has its own look—a graphic identity designed to communicate the positioning of that brand. For example, the brand packaging for the traditional Publix brand conveys quality and value, while GreenWise packaging communicates "natural" and "healthy." He notes that over the last three years, the group has converted most traditional Publix brand products to a new design system that emphasizes a clean, simple look with ready identification of the Publix brand.

The majority of the design work is handled in-house, although the group frequently uses outside resources to help with production. The process for generating a new design, as Cox describes it, is clear-cut. First, a creative team is given a brief that states the objectives. The designer then develops concepts within established standards for the design system. Concepts are reviewed by a cross-functional team. Production constraints are discussed and identified early in the process so that design solutions are consistent with production capabilities.

As the design team for a retailer that places house brands side by side with competitive products bearing household-name national brands, the Creative Group well understands the challenge of making packages stand out from the crowd on shelves that are more crowded with choices than ever before. Thus, says Cox, the mandate is to "develop a design that looks dramatically different than the majority of the other packages on the shelf."

GreenWise Market is a relatively new Publix brand that covers organic food products.

Down the line, across the board

Differentiation was the keynote of what Cox regards as the Creative Group's most challenging packaging assignment to date—developing the current comprehensive design system for the traditional Publix brand line of products. "We wanted to develop a look that said 'Publix' and one that could be applied consistently across all products and packages in the line," says Cox. "It had to be easy for customers to navigate, and it had to communicate quality and value." The concept, moreover, had to be applicable across multiple categories and various package types and materials, each with its own set of production constraints.

The task was as formidable as it sounds. "We've had a couple of designs within our new traditional Publix brand that just didn't work very well because the images got too complicated," Cox says. "We were trying to be clever and took a 'problem-solution' approach, and I think it became confusing. Communication on the shelf has to be clear and immediate. If our customer has to stop for very long to try to figure it out—it is too late. If we're going to be clever, it has to be clever and clear."

Clarity of design comes from keeping an eye on what Cox calls "the standard basics": composition and typography skills; the discipline to keep things simple yet engaging; and the ability to "see dimensionally" by anticipating the package's effectiveness in the market and on the shelf.

Publix uses uncomplicated, color-coordinated pictures to accent many of its private label products.

All around the "scround"

Modifying existing designs to accommodate structural changes and new packaging materials is another challenge to which the Creative Group has learned to rise. For example, says Cox, "We changed some of our ice cream cartons from a cube shape to a scround (a square with round corners) with a removable lid. So, the graphic design had to be modified to fit a cylindrical container that no longer had square corners, with no defined stopping points for the graphics.

These diapers are another Publix Premium line that make a strong statement with bold colors.

"We can successfully adapt our design to any package because we develop design systems with built-in flexibility," says Cox. "We try to anticipate every type of package we'll encounter and consider that as critical criteria when designing our systems."

Before finalizing a new package design, the Creative Group submits the concept to a cross-functional internal team. Publix quality assurance experts review all final designs to confirm compliance with legal requirements for packaging. As for consumer testing of packaging, Cox says that Publix routinely elicits get customer input, employing a variety of methods.

It is all about making package design one of the pillars of the Publix pledge to its shoppers. "We will continue to provide them the option of purchasing national brand products and Publix private label products," says Brous. "Our customers have nothing to lose and everything to gain with our Publix Guarantee: 'We will never knowingly disappoint you. If for any reason your purchase does not give you complete satisfaction, the full purchase price will be cheerfully refunded immediately upon request.'"