Catalogue research
Why Coles and Woolies only share about half their catalogues
July 2026 · Squirroo
Your friend swears by Campos coffee. You duck into Coles to grab a bag on the way home. Aisle after aisle: nothing. You weren’t unlucky — Campos is exclusive to Woolworths. You were shopping the wrong catalogue.
Or you toss Remano pasta in the trolley at Aldi because it looks like a proper Italian brand, the way Thomas Dux cheddar looks like a premium label at Woolies. Your brain files them next to Barilla and Mainland. They aren’t. Remano and Thomas Dux are house brands (also called private label) — products the supermarket owns — wearing packaging that doesn’t say so.
Underneath both mistakes is a fact most people will struggle to believe:
Aldi is a different game: about ~3,000 products in the same matched catalogue, and only ~300 of those also link at Coles or Woolworths. Most of the Aldi shelf isn’t trying to overlap with the majors — that’s the model.
It’s not mainly house brands
Ask why the catalogues diverge and most people shrug: Coles and Woolworths house brands. That’s part of it — only part. After cleaning out likely matching errors, house brands are only about 30% of the Woolworths-only slice (~34% at Coles). The rest is everyday brands that only one chain stocks — Campos at Woolies, Youfoodz at Coles — plus odd pack sizes from brands that exist at both. Classic Coke is everywhere; Coca-Cola Cherry 330ml only shows up at Woolworths in our data. Same idea as a Tim Tam flavour that only one supermarket bothers to range.
| One-chain brands (not house brand) | House brand | Same brand, unique packs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| WW-only | ~40% | ~29% | ~31% |
| Coles-only | ~47% | ~34% | ~19% |
| Aldi-only | — | ~86% | ~14% |
WW-only / Coles-only = products linked at that major but not the other. Coles’ one-chain slice is padded a bit by liquor.
Unlike Woolies and Coles, Aldi barely has exclusive national brands at all — almost everything unique on its shelf is house brand under a made-up name. That’s the model, not a quirk of the data.
Meaning: if you only ever shop one major, you’re not just missing a few specials. You’re missing a chunk of the country’s grocery shelf — including brands that simply don’t exist next door.
Phantom brands look real. They’re still the supermarket’s.
Some house brands put the supermarket on the pack — Coles Smart Buy, Coles Finest, Woolworths Essentials, The Odd Bunch (“by Woolworths”). You already know to check the unit price and swap if it’s not worth it.
Phantom brands (sometimes called ghost brands) are still house brands — still owned by the supermarket — but the pack doesn’t say so. Remano, Macro, Thomas Dux, Belmont, Mamia. They look like Uncle Tobys or Barilla. That’s the trick: your guard drops. It feels like choosing a normal brand. You’re still choosing the chain.
How should you treat them? Default: the same as Woolworths Essentials or Coles Smart Buy — unless you have a reason not to. We don’t have a blind taste-test proving phantoms are better or worse. Some are clearly aimed at the “premium” shelf (Thomas Dux, Macro Organic) and cost more than the plain supermarket label; that can be real quality, marketing, or both. Without contrary evidence, don’t let the costume alone justify a premium. Compare $/100g to other house brands. Keep the ones you’ve tried and still prefer.
Where phantoms show up (by aisle)
Pantry
Meat & seafood
Dairy / fridge
Snacks
Frozen
Bakery / deli
Baby
Pet
Beauty
Brands can appear in more than one aisle when they have a large footprint there (e.g. Macro). Recognition cheat sheet, not a full list.
One-chain brands: the Campos wild-goose chase
Back to Campos. It’s not a Woolworths house brand — it’s a normal coffee company, same idea as Tim Tams or Uncle Tobys — but it only shows up at Woolworths. So you can do exactly what the opening described: walk Coles looking for a bag that was never going to be there, burn ten minutes, leave annoyed, and maybe grab half a trolley of other stuff “while you’re there.”
Same pattern across the catalogue. Below: larger exclusive ranges (not house brands) colour-coded by supermarket — useful as a “don’t hunt this at the other shop” map. Knowing that isn’t loyalty; it’s navigation.
Bigger exclusive brands by aisle
Pantry
Dairy / fridge
Baby
Frozen
Meat & seafood
Pet
Drinks
Deli
Snacks
Fruit & veg
Not house brands — third-party labels that only appear at one major in the matched catalogue. Threshold: ≥10 products for the brand, ≥5 in that aisle; pantry capped at the top 10 by footprint. Liquor / beauty / homewares omitted. Aldi’s one-chain story is mostly phantoms above.
And if that brand is why you walked in, watch the rest of the trolley. The costly bit is rarely the coffee. It’s the milk, snacks, and cleaning products you add because you’re already in the store.
Try this next shop
Pick one habit for your next grocery run — not a spreadsheet, one rule:
“Which supermarket is cheaper?” only counts products that exist at both. Everything else is a preference, a one-chain brand, or a costume.
Method: active matched catalogue, Jul 2026; counts rounded to nearest thousand; exclusive split excludes suspected match gaps; Aldi made-up brands counted as house brand. Exclusive grid = non-house-brand labels at one major only; grocery-ish aisles; ≥10 SKUs (≥5 in the aisle); densest aisle capped at 10. Footprint, not sales. Not affiliated with Coles, Woolworths, or Aldi. Next: $/100g on house brands — phantoms vs obvious labels.