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House brands: what supermarket own-label products are, who makes them, and how to judge them

Walk down any supermarket aisle in Singapore and a large share of what you see is not a manufacturer's brand at all — it is the shop's own. FairPrice, Pasar, Meadows, Happy Family, Jonetsu Kakaku: these are house brands, also called own labels or private labels. They are products a retailer owns and sells exclusively in its own stores, made for it by somebody else. They are usually cheaper than the branded equivalent, and the gap is not small — FairPrice says its housebrand range is typically 10 to 15 per cent cheaper than comparable brands. The question this guide answers is the one shoppers actually ask in the aisle: cheaper than what, made by whom, and is it any good?

How big house brands are in Singapore

House brands are no longer a small corner of the shelf. FairPrice Group's Own Brands range generated close to S$1 billion in revenue in 2024 — about 20 per cent of the group's sales — across more than 3,500 products in more than 70 categories, sourced from more than 50 countries. One in three products in a FairPrice shopping basket is now an Own Brands item, and seven in ten online baskets contain one. A 2024 Nielsen survey found that 95 per cent of grocery shoppers in Singapore bought house brands, and a third said they were buying more of them, up from 27 per cent in 2021. NielsenIQ's 2025 outlook found Singapore's private-label share of packaged-goods growth outpacing Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. FairPrice says it is aiming for the global benchmark of about 30 per cent penetration — the level of retailers like Coles in Australia, Walmart in the United States and Tesco in Britain.

The history explains the scale. FairPrice launched its housebrand in 1985, in the middle of a recession, as the first retailer in Singapore to do so. NTUC members had already been packing rice into unbranded bags to sell cheaply since the 1970s; in 1985 the co-operative put its own name on everyday essentials, starting with rice, oil and sugar, at up to 10 per cent below branded prices. A year after launch, housebrand products made up 10 per cent of everything in the stores. The stated purpose then was the same as the co-operative's founding purpose in 1973: to moderate the cost of living. Forty years later the range runs from fresh produce to gourmet sausages.

What a house brand is, and why supermarkets have them

A house brand — also called an own label or a private label — is a brand owned by the retailer, not by a manufacturer. The retailer decides what the product should be, sets the specification and the price, and puts its own name on the pack. Somebody else makes it: a manufacturer contracted to produce to the retailer's specification. That arrangement is called private-label manufacturing, or co-packing. The manufacturer is usually anonymous — often by contract — and the product is sold only in that retailer's stores.

Supermarkets have house brands for several reasons, and they are not all about the shopper:

• Margin. A retailer that owns the brand keeps the manufacturer's brand margin for itself, and spends nothing on national advertising for the product. That is the main reason a house brand can be cheaper at the same quality.
• Control. The retailer sets the specification — the recipe, the pack size, the country it is sourced from — and can change supplier if the price or quality moves. A branded product's specification belongs to its manufacturer.
• Bargaining power. A strong own label gives the retailer leverage in negotiations with branded suppliers: if a brand's price rises too far, the retailer can give more shelf space to its own label.
• Loyalty. A house brand is only sold in one chain, so a shopper who likes it has to come back to that chain. That is worth more to the retailer than a branded product the shopper can buy anywhere.
• Price moderation. For FairPrice specifically, the housebrand was founded as a cost-of-living measure, and the co-operative still presents it that way.

Two distinctions matter. First, a house brand is not the same as an exclusive brand: Kirkland Signature (Costco's own label) is sold exclusively at FairPrice in Singapore, and Waitrose products are sold exclusively at Cold Storage and Giant — but those are other retailers' brands that FairPrice and Macrovalue have an exclusive right to sell here, not their own labels. Second, a house brand is not the same as a generic: generics are unbranded or plainly packaged commodities sold on price alone. House brands have names, packaging, quality tiers and, increasingly, premium lines.

The house brands on Singapore shelves

The table below lists the own-label ranges that could be verified for each retailer. Where a label's coverage could not be verified, only the name is given — a name on a trade list is not evidence of what the label sells.

Not covered here: smaller grocers such as Mustafa, Meidi-Ya and Little Farms. No own-label range could be verified for them, so none is listed — that is an absence of evidence, not evidence that they have none. If you find one, the same checks on this page apply to it.

Who actually makes house-brand products

This is the question with the least satisfying honest answer: usually, you cannot tell from the pack. Private-label manufacturers are often anonymous by contract, and the name on the pack is the retailer's, not the maker's. What the pack does tell you is the name and address of the local manufacturer, packer, importer or distributor — Singapore's Food Regulations require that on every prepacked food label, along with the country of origin for imported food. That line is the only checkable fact about who made a house-brand product. Everything else is inference.

Three things are genuinely true about how own-label manufacturing works:

• National-brand manufacturers often make store brands too. A factory with spare capacity can run a retailer's product on the same lines as its own brand. A Dartmouth Tuck School of Business study found that more than 70 per cent of the private-label suppliers it studied were national-brand manufacturers. That is a general finding about the industry, not a fact about any specific Singapore product.
• The same factory does not mean the same product. A manufacturer can run different formulas on the same line — a premium recipe for its own brand and a different recipe, with cheaper ingredients or different proportions, for a retailer's label. The factory is the same; the product is not necessarily. "Made by the same company" is therefore not a guarantee of anything, and it is also not something you can verify from a Singapore pack in most cases.
• Specifications belong to the retailer. In private-label manufacturing, the retailer sets the specification and the manufacturer builds to it. So the right question about a house brand is not "who made it?" but "what specification did the retailer set, and does the ingredient list show it?" A house brand with a short, recognisable ingredient list and a branded equivalent with a longer one tells you more than the factory ever could.

One checkable illustration of how varied sourcing is: FairPrice's Own Brands range is sourced from more than 50 countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Norway and Singapore. And a house brand's country of manufacture can surprise: Meadows bottled water sold at Giant was imported from Malaysia — the brand is Singapore's, the water was not. That is exactly why this site records country of manufacture as printed on each product, never inferred from the brand's origin: a Singapore supermarket's label says nothing about where the product was made.

Quality and value: what the evidence actually says

The value case is solid. FairPrice's own figure — housebrand products typically 10 to 15 per cent cheaper than comparable brands — is consistent with the range's history: at launch in 1985 the products were up to 10 per cent cheaper. In the United States, where the testing is most extensive, Consumer Reports puts the typical store-brand saving at 25 to 30 per cent, and in a 2022 blind test of 70 store-brand products against name brands, its tasters found 76 per cent of the store brands tasted just as good. In a smaller 19-pair blind taste-off, store brands tied the name brand 10 times, the name brand won 8 times, and the store brand won once. A global Nielsen survey found 71 per cent of respondents saying store-brand quality had improved over time.

But the honest picture has three qualifications:

• Quality varies by product, not by label. The Consumer Reports results were mixed by design: store brands did well on staples and simple products, and less well where the recipe is complex or the texture is hard to get right — ice cream, orange juice, biscuits. The same is true in Singapore: a house-brand rice, oil or sugar is a commodity with a standard specification, and there is little room for it to be worse; a house-brand biscuit or sauce is a recipe, and recipes differ. Judge the product, not the label.
• "Premium" own-label lines cost more on purpose. FairPrice Gold, Pasar Organic and Delicato are positioned above the standard housebrand, not below the branded equivalent. A Gold product can cost as much as, or more than, a mid-range brand. The word "housebrand" does not mean "cheapest" — it means "the retailer's own". Check the price per 100 g against the branded product next to it, not against the idea of a house brand.
• Promotions change the answer weekly. A branded product on a 30 per cent promotion can be cheaper than the house brand that week. The house brand's advantage is that its everyday price is low; the branded product's advantage is that it goes on promotion often. Neither is always cheaper — the shelf-edge price per 100 g, on the day, is the only comparison that counts.

The traps

• The pack-size trap. A house brand can look cheaper because the pack is smaller. A 400 g house-brand pack at $3.00 is not cheaper than a 500 g branded pack at $3.50 — it is $0.75 per 100 g against $0.70. Always compare price per 100 g or per 100 ml, which is printed on the shelf-edge label in Singapore supermarkets.
• The house brand that is not the cheapest. In some categories the cheapest product on the shelf is a second-tier brand, not the house brand — and in a promotion week, the branded product can undercut it. "House brand" is a statement about ownership, not a guarantee of the lowest price.
• Exclusive is not own-label. Kirkland Signature at FairPrice and Waitrose at Cold Storage are other retailers' brands sold here under exclusive deals. They are often good value, but they are not the retailer's own label, and their quality and sourcing are set by Costco and Waitrose, not by FairPrice or Macrovalue.
• The same name, different product. A house brand's specification can change — a new supplier, a new country of origin, a reformulated recipe — without the packaging changing. FairPrice's range is sourced from more than 50 countries, and suppliers change. If a house-brand product you buy regularly tastes different, check the country of manufacture and the ingredient list before assuming it is the same product.
• Health claims on the front. A house brand can carry the same front-of-pack claims as a branded product — "less sugar", "wholegrain", "trans fat free" — and the claims mean the same thing, because the labelling rules are the same for every brand. A claim is not a recommendation; read the panel behind it.
• Assuming the whole range is equal. A retailer can have an excellent house-brand rice and a mediocre house-brand biscuit. The brand name is the same; the products are not. One good experience does not certify the range, and one bad one does not condemn it.

How to read a house-brand label

The rules are the same as for any brand, because the law makes no distinction between a house brand and a manufacturer's brand. The checks that matter most on a house-brand pack:

• Ingredients, in descending order of weight. The first ingredient is the main one. Compare the house brand's ingredient list with the branded equivalent's, side by side, on the same product: same first three ingredients in the same order is a good sign; sugar, palm oil or a long list of additives appearing earlier in the house brand's list is the difference you are paying less for.
• Country of manufacture, as printed. The pack states it; the brand's origin does not. A FairPrice, Meadows or Happy Family product can be made in Malaysia, Thailand, China, Australia or Singapore — it varies by product, and it can change. Never infer it from the brand name.
• Halal certification, per product. Halal certification applies to individual products, not to a brand. Many FairPrice housebrand products are halal-certified — the FairPrice site lists them with a Halal tag — but the certification is on the pack or the listing for that product. A housebrand name is not itself a halal guarantee, and a product without the mark is not certified, whatever the brand.
• Nutri-Grade, for drinks. Nutri-Grade applies to all prepackaged beverages sold in Singapore, house brand or not, graded A to D by sugar and saturated fat per 100 ml; C and D must show the mark on the front of the pack. A house-brand drink with a Grade D is a Grade D drink — the label does not change the grade. From 2028, HPB has announced the scheme will extend to salt, sauces, seasonings, instant noodles and cooking oils, which will bring many house-brand pantry staples into the same system.
• Healthier Choice Symbol. The symbol is awarded per product against HPB's criteria for that food category, and house-brand products can carry it the same as branded ones. It means the product meets the criteria for its category — it does not mean the product is healthy in general.
• Manufacturer, packer or importer line. The name and address on the label is the local business responsible for the product in Singapore. It is usually the retailer's own importing arm, not the factory. It tells you who to contact, not who made it.

Practical checks

Four checks, in order, in the aisle:

1. Compare price per 100 g, not price per pack. Find the house brand and the branded equivalent, and read the unit price on the shelf-edge label. If the house brand is cheaper per 100 g, it is cheaper; if it is not, the brand name is not costing you anything that week.
2. Compare the first three ingredients. Same ingredients in the same order means the products are close; a different first ingredient, or sugar or palm oil moving up the list, means the recipe is different and the taste or nutrition will be too. For staples with one ingredient — rice, cooking oil, eggs — there is almost nothing to differ on, and the house brand is usually the easy switch.
3. Check the panel per 100 g, not per serving. Sugar, sodium and saturated fat per 100 g is the comparable figure. A house brand that is cheaper and identical per 100 g is a straight saving; one that is cheaper but higher in sugar or sodium per 100 g is a trade, not a saving.
4. Taste-test once, then decide by category. Buy the house brand once in each category you use regularly — soy sauce, canned tuna, instant noodles, biscuits, fresh milk, dishwashing liquid, laundry detergent — and keep the ones you cannot tell apart. Staples and cleaning products are the easiest switches; recipe-driven foods are where you may find a difference worth paying for.

What this page is not

• Not medical advice. Nothing on this page is a recommendation about what to eat. If a health condition changes what you should buy, that advice comes from your doctor or dietitian, not from a guide about supermarket labels.
• Not a ranking of brands or products. There is no score here and no list ordered best to worst — neither of house brands against each other nor of house brands against branded products. Quality varies by product, and the page gives you the checks to make the comparison yourself.
• Not a complete list of house brands. It covers the own-label ranges of the main Singapore supermarket chains that could be verified. A label you meet that is not here has not been judged — it has not been covered yet. No specific prices are quoted anywhere on this page, because prices vary by shop and week.