Germany's Aldi Süd was the most decorated retailer at this year's PLMA International Salute to Excellence Awards, which have been announced in Amsterdam.
The discounter took eight awards in the annual Awards programme, which coincides with the PLMA World of Private Label trade show, which kicks off on Tuesday at RAI Amsterdam.
Other highly-decorated retailers at the Awards included Auchan from France, Axfood from Sweden, and Dunnes Stores and Musgrave Group from Ireland, and Penny Markt from Germany; each of which took home five awards.
National Pride
By country, German retailers took home the highest number of Salute to Excellence Awards, with 21 honours, followed by France with 15, the Netherlands with 14, the United Kingdom with 12, and Ireland and Italy with 10 each.
More than 120 products were selected as winners at the awards, which were created by PLMA to give recognition to retailers for private label innovation, quality and value for money.
The winning products came from 51 retailers across 20 countries, with judges considering more than 430 products from 76 retailers as part of the judging process.
“When you look back and realise that private label in the past was often low-cost, low quality but now represents innovation and the best quality, it is very gratifying to see how far retailers have come in establishing their own brands," commented Brian Sharoff, President of PLMA.
The full list of winners can be found here.
Wine Honours
In addition, 300 wines from 39 retailers were evaluated by panels of Masters of Wine, sommeliers and writers as well as industry professionals, as part of the Salute to Excellence Wine Awards.
Albert Heijn from the Netherlands, Aldi Süd from Germany, Auchan from France, Central Food Retail in Thailand, El Corte Inglés in Spain, and Sonae MC in Portugal were among the award winners in the various wine categories.
The list of wine winners can be found here.
All winning products will be on display at the PLMA World of Private Label trade show, which will welcome more than 14,000 buyers and visitors from over 110 countries.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine
