Late 2025, the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNi) released its first-ever “US Retail Assessment,” analyzing thousands of store-brand products sold by the country’s largest grocery chains: Walmart, Kroger, and Food Lion. These three retailers together account for roughly 37% of national grocery sales.
The result? A startling majority of private-label foods are deemed “unhealthy.” Over 75% of store-brand products were found to contain too much sugar, salt, or fat and when additives like artificial colors, flavors, and sweeteners are taken into account, more than 80% qualify as highly processed or unhealthy.
Even more troubling: among 1,777 products featured in recent promotional flyers and online deals, only a tiny fraction were healthy. In detail: just 5% of promoted items at Walmart, 17% at Kroger, and 18% at Food Lion passed the “healthy” threshold.
The report also highlights a big price barrier: healthier grocery baskets were found to cost substantially more than their less healthy counterparts about 18.4% more at Walmart and a staggering 58.7% more at Kroger.
Why This Matters: The Broader Context
With a growing obesity crisis in the United States and estimates projecting that up to two-thirds of adults could be obese by 2050 without major changes grocery stores play an outsized role in shaping Americans’ diets.
Because the three supermarkets studied reach such a large share of U.S. households, the nutritional quality of their private-label foods significantly influences the national diet. In other words: for millions of Americans relying on store brands for everyday meals, this report raises a big red flag.
The findings also suggest that even when shoppers try to choose “store-brand” to save money, they may often be choosing less healthy foods due to a combination of aggressive marketing, pricing incentives for processed products, and a lack of transparent nutrition standards across retailers.
What’s Driving This And What Could Change
Why are so many store-brand products unhealthy? The report and related industry observations point to several root causes:
- Profit-driven product formulation
Junk foods processed snacks, sugary beverages, cheap comfort foods have higher profit margins, longer shelf lives, and often cheaper ingredients. That makes them more attractive to retailers compared to reformulating healthier foods (with fresh produce, whole grains, low sugar, etc.). - Marketing and promotion bias
Flyers, store ads, and promotions overwhelmingly favor products high in sugar, fat, or sodium giving consumers a nudge toward what sells rather than what’s healthy. - Affordability gap
Healthier foods tend to cost more. For budget-conscious American families, that price difference can be a major deterrent.
Lack of consistent labeling and health standards across retailers. Without unified definitions of “healthy” or mandatory front-of-package labeling, many store-brand foods slip through as “normal” despite poor nutrition profiles.
What are the implications and what could change?
Public health impact. Given the link between diet quality, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions, a food environment saturated with unhealthy store-brand options could fuel worse health outcomes across the population in the coming decades.
Pressure on retailers to reformulate. As consumers become more aware and demand healthier options, grocers may gradually begin to clean up their store-brand products — removing harmful additives, cutting sugar/salt/fat, and offering better alternatives. Indeed, some retailers have already started: Walmart, for example, announced a plan to remove synthetic dyes and certain additives from its private-label food products.
Potential policy and regulation changes. Advocacy groups and public health experts may push for stricter rules: clearer labeling, limits on marketing unhealthy foods, subsidies or pricing strategies to make healthy foods more affordable, especially for low- and middle-income households.
Consumer awareness and behavior shift. Armed with this kind of information, shoppers may start scrutinizing labels, preferring fresh produce or national brands with transparent nutrition labeling potentially reshaping demand at the retail level.
What You Should Know as a Shopper
- Most store-brand foods at major U.S. supermarkets are not healthy: over 75% contain excessive sugar, salt, or fat.
- Products promoted heavily in flyers or weekly ads are even more likely to be unhealthy and healthy items are rarely featured.
- Healthier food choices tend to cost more sometimes significantly which makes access harder for budget-conscious households.
- Retailers may be pressured to reformulate better-quality store-brand products in response to public awareness and demand.
The 2025 US Retail Assessment serves as a wake-up call for American consumers, retailers, and public health officials. Grocery stores aren’t just neutral marketplaces they help shape what millions of Americans eat every week. When major supermarkets push store-brand products that are predominantly high in sugar, salt, and fat, the consequences ripple across society’s health.
For shoppers: reading labels, comparing nutrition info, and favoring fresh or less processed options can make a real difference. For retailers and policymakers: this report underscores the urgent need for reform better labeling, healthier formulations, fair pricing.
The good news? Some change is already underway. As consumers demand healthier options, retailers have a genuine chance to lead a shift toward better nutrition — and help curb the chronic disease burden America faces.
