BRAND FOOTPRINT 2025
Decoding brand choices in Great Britain
Since its launch in 2013, we've built the most comprehensive picture of consumer choice available anywhere, now covering more than 30,000 brands across 56 countries. The depth and breadth of this data is incomparable. It enables us to celebrate...
The top 20 rankings
Predictions for the remainder of the year
What is Brand Footprint
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The numbers are remarkably consistent: half of FMCG brands grow each year, half decline. That’s the shape of the market, not a matter of chance. The brands that rise are those that act deliberately. In Britain, that intent is visible at the top of the rankings and among those moving up the leaderboard.
The growth lever? Penetration. Globally, more than 88% of growing brands last year did so by expanding their shopper base. Lay’s reached more households by adapting formats, pricing, and messaging in priority markets. OMO (known in the UK as Persil) created a new usage occasion with Wonder Wash, a detergent designed for short cycles. This product was engineered to solve for a simple truth: most laundry today is marked by invisible odours and time pressure, not visible dirt. Wonder Wash addressed that gap directly, and built new demand in the process.
We see many other winning brands applying the same principles across the British brand landscape. At first glance, the rankings for many might appear unchanged. And this is true. But the numbers hide the hustle. These brands are adapting in quiet, specific ways, refusing to rest on legacy. This is especially true for food brands, though we’re seeing similar dynamics play out across other categories.
The work required to hold position has intensified. As we note in our Global Brand Footprint report, the question isn't whether you can escape the 50:50 game of growth or decline, but how you can consistently win it. Warburtons, Heinz, Pringles, and Fox’s offer good examples of brands consistently finding ways to win. Each has adapted with purpose.
Warburtons (Ranked #1) shows how to stay strong while the ground shifts. Toast and sandwiches are becoming less frequent. The brand has expanded its range to match changing routines: bagels, pittas, flatbreads, seeded loaves. These formats support a mix of eating needs — sit-down meals, quick snacks, everything in between. Crumpets and teacakes help keep the brand present across the day. It remains close by staying current.
Heinz (Ranked #2) is holding ground through the depth of its portfolio. CRPs are down, with both penetration and frequency under pressure. But the detail tells a different story.
Heinz is showing resilience in its more traditional categories. Soup, for example, may not be a growth engine, but it still earns its place in weekday meals. It’s fast, warm, filling, and familiar — qualities that matter when people are simplifying meals and watching costs.
Shelf visibility, promotional support, and a deep-rooted link with comfort and quality help keep Heinz front of mind. The brand remains relevant in pressured categories that continue to do a job for people.
Its broad portfolio — from soup and beans to sauces and salad accompaniments — helps absorb shifts in behaviour, giving it more than one route to household relevance.
Heinz innovates with care. The range evolves, but familiarity remains. That balance keeps it in step with how people eat today.
Pringles (Ranked #20, up one place into the top 20) shows how utility supports reach. Pringles has grown by moving beyond its traditional image as a party snack. It still fits that role, but now turns up in more places: solo moments, shared meals, informal lunches, and impulse grabs.
The packaging helps — resealable, portable, and portion-flexible. So does the product design: clean shape, consistent flavour hit, familiar format. But what drives the numbers is its adaptability. It fits across the day without much need for justification. That’s not true for every snack brand.
What Pringles has achieved is presence through versatility. It’s added reasons to choose it: a broader stretch across usage, without diluting its identity. Pringles plays to its strengths, winning in its core “Sofa & Chill” moment but it’s also stretching into other meal occasions as it looks to broaden its role.
Each of these examples points to a wider shift. Strong CRP performance is built on real-world presence — being where people are, doing a job that matters. Category growth is useful. Brand behaviour is essential.
To return to the Wonder Wash example, it also shows how far that thinking can go. In the UK, it became the highest-value FMCG innovation of the year. Its success didn’t rely on shelf noise or deep promotion. It met the needs of new segments — pre-family households, Gen Xers, time-poor professionals — who felt underserved by traditional laundry formats. Over half of the product’s value came from switching shoppers away from competitors. More came from expanding the category itself.
In other words, usage builds reach. Brands that solve real problems grow. Those that wait for habits to settle, stall. That principle applies globally and locally.
The Brand Footprint rankings reflect what gets chosen. The real question is why. The answer sits in usage, in timing, in function. Brands that align with those moments remain visible, present, and picked.
CRPs and usage occasions are both up. This brand understands how people snack now — casually, emotionally, and often solo. The products are familiar, comforting, and easy to reach for. From Crunch Creams and Viennese to Chocolatey Rounds and seasonal assortments, Fox’s delivers variety without losing clarity.
These are snacks that fill emotional gaps as much as physical ones. The brand performs well in habitual, low-effort moments — tea breaks, evening sofa snacks, mid-afternoon pauses. It also turns up in special seasonal windows, where gifting and treating offer a volume lift.
This is about fitting with how people structure their day, or increasingly, how they unstructure it. Fox’s feels embedded in that looseness. The formats suit single-serve, sharing, and everything in between. That flexibility has helped the brand become a dependable presence across more occasions, not just a sweet treat at the end of the day.
