Why Woolworths and Coles are now selling thousands more ‘own brand’ products

Julia Gomina/Getty Images When Aldi opened its first supermarket in Sydney in 2001, the stage was set for a fight with Woolworths and Coles.

At the time, Australia’s two biggest supermarkets controlled about 71% of the grocery market.

Aldi was an unknown brand, stocked fewer products than its rivals, and premium real estate was already taken.

To be successful, it needed a trump card.

Its strategy? To make 90% of its products “own brands”, often sold at lower prices.

By about 2015, it had captured about 9% of Australian supermarket sales.

But recent reports show Woolworths and Coles are holding their smaller competitors at bay .

In part, they’ve done it by adopting some of Aldi’s own sales tactics.

Where Australians get their groceries Last year, the national competition watchdog – the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission – estimated Woolworths had 38% of national supermarket grocery sales, followed by Coles with 29%.

That’s a combined total of 67% – not far below their joint total in 2001.

Meanwhile, Aldi had about a 9% market share in 2025, the same as more than a decade ago.

Metcash (as a proxy for the independent supermarkets it supplies) had 7%.

More recent figures from analysts UBS suggest Woolworths’ market share has crept higher to 40% – meaning the two biggest players have a joint share that’s barely changed since 2001.

So how have Woolworths and Coles been hanging onto customers? ‘Own brands’ with many names One of their key strategies has been to follow Aldi’s lead: adding thousands of “own brand” products over recent years.