Price inflation in center-store food categories has lingered despite relaxed inflation in food overall, particularly in fresh foods, said Doug McMillon, president and chief executive officer of Walmart, in a conference call last week on the company’s second-quarter results. As a result, Walmart aims to push food manufacturers to ease pricing and to counteract potential increases, he noted.

“In dry grocery, processed food consumables are where inflation has been more stubborn,” McMillon said. “As we mentioned, we still have slight inflation even in the last quarter in the food categories. So, I’m hoping that what we see from our branded suppliers is investment in price, and we’re seeing that from some of them and not others. We have less upward pressure, but there are some (suppliers) that are still talking about cost increases. And we’re fighting back on that aggressively, because we think prices need to come down.”

Walmart US now has more than 7,200 price rollbacks in effect across categories. Though Walmart’s private labels have gained as consumers become more price-sensitive, McMillon said the retailer would like to see name brands sharpen their value offer to shoppers.

“We want to sell brands,” he said. “It’s important to Walmart to sell brands and show a value. So, we’re hoping that our branded suppliers do the right things with both quality and price to get to the value that our customers want to see. I would guess that private brand continues to grow, although it’d be OK with us if the percent of total leveled out for the reason that I just mentioned. Our teams are doing a better job with private brand as it relates to both the development of the product, the quality of it and the value. So that’s good and helpful for customers, and we’ll keep doing that.”

At Walmart US, second-quarter net sales rose 4.1% year over year, with comparable sales excluding fuel up a better-than-expected 4.2%. Customer transactions gained 3.6%, up from 2.9% a year ago, and average ticket size edged up just 0.6%, compared with 3.4% a year earlier.

Walmart’s strong quarterly results, however, present a “good news/bad news” scenario for “Big Food” companies, said TD Cowen analyst Robert Moskow.