UK shoppers believe own label is as good quality as brands, according to research to be published next month.

Research conducted by Saatchi & Saatchi X, which will be published in 'Private Label: Turning the retail brand threat into your biggest opportunity', found that 79% of UK respondents believed own label to be either very good or fairly good compared with a brand. Sixty per cent of UK shoppers rated brands and own label as fairly good and 87% agreed there were no limits to the categories into which private label could move.

Keith Lincoln, the book's co-author, warned that many brands were not taking competition from own labels seriously enough.

"If a recognised competitor was achieving product parity, the brand owner would be worried and do something about it. But do they have the same response to private label?"

However, scope for rapid growth could be limited due to the maturity of own label in the UK, suggested the research. Only 5% of shoppers said they did not currently buy own label but were likely to in the future.

The research also featured insights from 10 UK brand owners, who unanimously agreed that private label was an increasing threat to their business. But while 54% of shoppers said own label products were as innovative as brands, only 25% of brand owners agreed. "The UK is the market where brands feel most under pressure," said Lincoln. "UK brand owners see no limit to private label (75%), see more damage to future profits (50%) and forecast more premium private label products coming through (75%)."

Brand owners needed to embrace the concepts of 'social needs retailing', selling across multi-formats, becoming a radical brand, and striving to provide better value than own label to counter the own label threat, said Lincoln.

One UK retailer said it was the "dynamism in private label products such as Tesco Finest, especially in categories such as chilled and frozen", that was changing shoppers' expectations and driving the category.