When everyone is premium, no one is

Some form of “Premium” now appears on just about everything from sauces to coffee. Some products earn it, too many are yesterday’s baseline standard sold back at a mark-up.

The way this happens is familiar: first, a new baseline is created by making quiet cuts to the product: smaller packs for the same sticker, lower share of hero ingredients, recipe tweaks that stretch inputs (overall quality slips with each cost-squeeze cycle). Thereafter, “yesterday’s standard” gets relabelled as “ today’s premium”.

It’s the old playbook at work: good-better-best (GBB) tiering, premiumisation, and when costs rise, shrinkflation (less product) and skimpflation (downgraded content). Used together, these tactics invert the baseline, and people notice—globally. In Indonesia, more than half of shoppers say products they buy regularly have downsized, and across Asia-Pacific, the pattern is broader.

Everyone Wants Value

Across the region, people are spending more but buying fewer units, and growth has slowed. Private labels have become mainstream, with market share flowing to retailer-owned lines; fifty-four percent of APAC shoppers saying they are more likely than ever to buy retailer brands. In Singapore, FairPrice’s own brands generated close to S$1 billion in 2024, hitting a long-term goal six years early.

That said, people are still splurging selectively where quality matters to them. While basics shift to house brands, “worth it” still gets paid for—regional trackers describe people trading down on some items and deliberately upgrading on items that count.

The old playbook still works, but it is not future-proof.

Cheaper options will always exist, but brands racing to match them only shrinks both edge and growth.With the baseline already weakened, people have alternatives readily available everywhere.

In the long view, the only way forward is up: offering products of true premium quality with differences that are tangible and defensible. If a product cannot win a blind comparison and sustain repeat purchases at full price, it is not good enough. Calling it “premium” will not cut it. What matters is worth that people can actually discern.

Raising Standards

The retail foods sector in Singapore is described as one of the most developed and competitive in Southeast Asia, with consumer-oriented food imports around US$11 billion in 2024. People constantly see and compare against foreign options, so the only way to defend a price premium is to make the difference obvious in performance and behaviour.

The upside is promising. By 2030, ASEAN is set to add roughly 170–200 million more middle- and upper-middle-income people, taking the pool to more than 400 million, a sizeable demographic shift worth pursuing. In this time, the demand for “worth it” choices will only expand and brands will need more than “premium” labelled on their products to serve the demand. They will need standards and reputation that stand up to scrutiny.

Further afield, the country-of-origin shortcut has weakened. In the latest SBF national business survey, firms citing the “reputation of the Singapore brand” as a growth driver fell from 53% to 26%. Overseas growth now rests on standards that can be shown and kept, and not birthplace.

Lasting Premium

Which is why lasting premium belongs only to brands that prove their worth. They stand out in service and performance, not vocabulary. People pay more when the difference is clear, and that willingness is what turns “premium” from a label into hard-earned prestige. That is the foundation on which brands can break through and face the future with strength.