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1. Introduction
The terms store brands, retail brands and private label brands are used indistinctly to describe brands of consumer goods that are produced according to a retailer and marketed under a retailer name through the retailer outlets (DelVecchio, 2001); thus, private label brands are brands managed and owned by a particular retailer (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007). From the consumers' standpoint, private label brands provide with a competitive alternative to manufacturer brands based on lower prices, due to their lower costs (Dick et al. , 1995). Traditionally, price conscious consumers were considered to be the typical buyers of private label brands (Kwon et al. , 2008); but nowadays these brands are being demanded by all types of consumers seeking for quality brands at an affordable price (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007; Kwon et al. , 2008). And from the retailer's perspective, private label brands can have a significant impact on the retailer's competitive strategy and differentiation (Lymperopoulos et al. , 2010), improve store image, strengthen the retailer image and create customer loyalty (Ailawadi et al. , 2008; Anselmsson and Johansson, 2009; Beneke, 2010).
Today, private label brands are present in almost every product category, particularly in the grocery sector (Lamey et al. , 2007; Beneke, 2010). In fact, in the food industry, there has been an increase in the private label brands' market share and penetration globally; while food retailers have achieved great success with their private label brands (Lassoued and Hobbs, 2015). However, there is a lack of research on consumer behaviour regarding private labels of food products; and more specifically, there is scarce literature on the role and influence of trust on these retailer brands for the case of food products. So, in this context, the aim of the present study is to examine and provide useful insights into the influence and effect of consumer trust on the purchase intention and loyalty to food private label brands. Likewise, other interesting question that arises is whether consumers exhibit similarities in their purchase behaviour of food private label brands according to their trust on these retail brands. That is, it seems plausible that food private label brands' proneness may differ between consumers with high trust and consumers with low trust.
For this purpose, we provide and...