Walmart unveils new packaging for its Great Value store brand to reflect changing shopping habits

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart is redesigning the packaging of its Great Value store brand to help customers instantly spot whether that bag of spicy chips is gluten free or how much protein is packed in its chicken nuggets.

Great Value is Walmart's biggest private label food brand and one of the largest food and consumer packaged goods labels in the U.S. The redesign of the brand, which spans 10,000 different products, also reflects how shoppers are looking at its store brands in food not as a stepdown from national labels but more as an equivalent.

Among the changes are better images of its food. For example, new packaging for Great Value lasagna shows the meal garnished with a basil leaf served on a full plate displayed on a red checkered table cloth against a red background instead of the lasagna against a white background, to better tempt shoppers to pick up the item, according to Walmart executives.

The changes, announced Wednesday, mark the first full redesign in more than 10 years for the 33-year-old brand. The new packaging will start to appear on shelves next month, according to Scott Morris, senior vice president of Walmart's U.S. private brands division. He emphasized the redesign doesn't include any changes to the products themselves.

The changes are happening as challenging economic times are pushing shoppers to buy more store label brands instead of national labels, which tend to be more expensive. Private brands accounted for 23.9% of the overall market share in the number of units in the food and beverage category sold last year, up slightly from 23.7% during the previous year, according to market research firm Circana. That compares with 76.1% for national name brands last year, down from 76.3% in 2024.

Walmart said that overall store label brands account for about a quarter of Walmart U.S. merchandise sales but declined to give out sales figures for Great Value. The company has repeatedly said that shoppers are increasingly gravitating toward its store label brands.

Moreover, customers are increasingly picky about the ingredients in their food, looking for protein-packed meals or items without gluten, for example. In addition, Walmart said that its shoppers along with its gig workers, who have to quickly pick items off the shelves to assemble online orders, are looking to speed up their shopping so they need to be able to spot the key ingredient elements quickly.

“We're offering this great product at a very affordable price, but there was always this kind of lagging feeling that a customer was buying this product that felt like they had to compromise," said Dave Hartman, vice president of creative design for Walmart. "So that was one of the key impetuses in terms of redesigning the brand.”

Other food companies are also redesigning their packaging. PepsiCo. announced earlier this month a refreshed package design for its Tostitos to better call out claims such as no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.

Great Value's new design will relocate nutritional information to the upper right hand corner of packaging, Hartman said. In the past, there was no consistent location, he said.

For example, the newly redesigned package of Great Value Chicken Nuggets calls out 11 grams of protein per serving at the upper right hand corner. The photo shows the nuggets on a plate with a container of red sauce in the middle. The previous package doesn't offer the protein count, and the photo doesn't show the entire plate.

The move to redesign Great Value packaging is the latest investment Walmart is making in its store label brands. Walmart announced last fall its goal to remove synthetic dyes from its food private brands.