As a consumer, you may not know the connection, but PepsiCo, through its Frito-Lay brand, dominates the salty-snack market.
That number was estimated at 62% of the total market, according to an SEC filing from Utz Brands, a rival salty-snacks brand.
It’s a market that has been growing, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta shared during his company’s second-quarter earnings call.
“Salty snacks is one of the few categories that is growing in volume in the overall food space in the U.S.,” he said.
PepsiCo, he noted, has seen some movement in that area.
“We’re gaining share of volume in the U.S. in salty snacks, which was also the other objective. That’s the number one. Is the volume as much as we expected? No, not in Q2. It’s a couple of elements. I think the consumer is worse than what we had anticipated, and it’s driven mainly by gas prices,” he added.
Now, comments from Casey’s General Stores, Inc. CEO Darren Rebelez suggest that PepsiCo may actually have a growing salty-snacks problem.
PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay may have a pricing problem
Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets asked Rebelez about salty-snack sales during the earnings call.
“Just curious a little bit more color there when that kind of weaker trend started, and are you seeing just more of a unit slowdown, or is there a trade down to lower price points or smaller pack sizes?” she asked.
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Rebelez shared some broad strokes.
“Snacks is something that we have probably experienced for the last couple of years where the national brand manufacturers have just taken a lot of price, primarily in chips. And so you see a lot of pressure in that category,” he said.
He said that has led to problems for the name brands, which means PepsiCo/Frito-Lay, even though he did not name them.
“They just price themselves out of the market, frankly,” he added.
The CEO thinks customers are cutting back on spending, not cutting calories.
“When I look at what is happening in the category, and as I mentioned before, on snacks in particular, national brand chips are down around 8%. Casey’s chips are up 16% in units,” Rebelez said.
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American consumers are trading down
Casey’s is not the only retailer seeing customers opt for store brands over national brands. In fact, private labels have outpaced national brand growth over the past year, according to the Summer 2026 Private Brand Intelligence Report (PBIR) from private brand agency Daymon.
Based on two surveys of 1,000 U.S. adults each, the June PBIR found that 95% of consumers buy private labels, with 69% saying they purchase the brands on most or every shopping trip, said the study from Daymon, part of St. Louis-based CPG sales and marketing firm Advantage Solutions Inc.
“Private label rose 210 basis points to 23.5% in dollar share and inched up 5 basis points to 24.9% in unit share for the 52 weeks ended April 18, the report said, citing NielsenIQ sales data. That compared with 110-basis-point growth in dollar share and a 76-basis-point decrease in unit share for national brands over the period,” Food Business News reported.
Data from McKinsey’s The State of Grocery North America 2026 shows cash-strapped consumers turning to private labels.
“Discrete responses to inflation have evolved into shoppers increasingly making deliberate trade-offs in both what they buy and how they shop, reshaping how demand is distributed across trips and formats. More than half report reducing impulse purchases (51%), while many are trading into private label (47%), relying more on promotions (43%), or comparing prices more carefully (43%),” the data showed.
Private labels, McKinsey noted, traditionally did well during tougher economic times, then lost share as the economy has recovered. That’s not what’s happening now, according to the report.
“Even as inflation has moderated from recent highs, private label continues to grow significantly faster than national brands — by roughly three times last year. Consumers are no longer choosing private brands solely because of price but increasingly because they view them as credible alternatives to national brands on quality, innovation, and product experience,” McKinsey shared.
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