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Commentary by David Chapman, Senior Manager, Global Insight-led Content & Thought Leadership, Worldpanel by Numerator
Brand Footprint counts one thing: how often a household actually chose a brand. It counts what went into the basket and ignores what people recall, admire or intend to buy. In 2025, across 58 markets and 1.44 billion households, that happened 549 billion times.
It was a good year to be counting. Inflation eased and prices did not, and the shopper became the editor.
The editor’s cut
More than half of brands grew: 53% of the 26,618 we track, and 66% of the global Top 50. Like for like against a restated 2024, not one brand entered or left that Top 50, and twenty of the fifty held exactly the same rank.
That sounds like a quiet year, and it was not. The other thirty moved, 176 of the 353 global brands lost choices. Coca-Cola, ranked first with 8.8 billion choices and three quarters more than any other brand. Stability at the summit is not stability in the aisle.
Rationed, not resigned
If the squeeze shows up anywhere, it is in frequency. Doritos, Cheetos and Ruffles all reached more households in 2025 and all lost between 6% and 10% of their buying frequency. Coca-Cola held its 49.2% of households.
Nobody left the aisle; they went in less often. Meanwhile the treat with an entry price did rather well: Maltesers, Haribo and Snickers grew while others lost their choices. Call it treatonomics. The big indulgence goes and the small one gets protected.
A bar too far
The harvests that failed in 2023 and 2024 appear to have been paid for at the checkout in 2025. Cocoa passed $12,000 a tonne, butter and orange juice set records, and ten of the fifteen chocolate brands in the ranking were bought less often.
The ones that held the line on price held their place. Milka and Cadbury Dairy Milk each raised spend per choice by 14%. Snickers raised it 3% and grew 11.7%. Cocoa was 43% below its peak by August 2025, so 2026 probably belongs to whoever hands the relief back first.
Second helpings
Recruitment is still the surest route: 68% of growing brands added households. The second visit is the hard part. Of the brands that recruited in 2024, 22% kept those households and were chosen more often a year later.
What the 22% had was a habit already forming. Two in three were being bought more often inside their first year, and their spend per choice rose a median 1.0%, against 3.8% for everyone else. Build it and they come, at least once. The ranking rewards the return.
Justify your place
Five reasons still earned a brand its spot in 2025: health worth paying for, a small luxury, value that performs, a shortcut that also beats the takeaway on price, and a local name. Not one of them is new.
What changed is that each had to be restated every time the price moved.
The European view, from YouGov
Shoppers across Europe aren’t spending less in 2025, they’re spending more deliberately, balancing budget control with health needs, convenience, and small justified treats. The brands climbing local Brand Footprint rankings succeed by making this easier: they stand for something clear at the moment of choice, whether it’s functional health you can decode instantly, everyday staples that feel upgraded, or indulgence that doesn’t require guilt, so shoppers choose them without hesitation and come back without rethinking.
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