Walmart Introduces 'Marketside' Brand Packaged Fresh-Baked Breads, Sub Rolls and Chocolate Chunk Cookie

Breaking Buzz: Private Brand Showcase

Walmart Stores, Inc. has introduced its line of 'Marketside' brand pre-packaged fresh-baked breads and submarine sandwich-style rolls, along with the first item, a 3.17 ounce Chocolate Chunk Cookie, in what will be a multi-item companion line of 'Marketside' packaged, ready-to-eat fresh baked goods.

The first items in the 'Marketside' fresh-baked bread line are:

Bread Loaves, 16 ounce packages:

>Roasted Garlic Artisian Loaf
>MultiGrain Boule
>Neo Tuscan Boule
>Combo Loaf
>Ciabatti Loaf
>Seeded Rye Loaf
>MultiGrain Loaf Bread
>Sourdough Loaf Bread
>Pumpernickel Loaf Bread

Sub Sandwich-Style Rolls, 16 Ounce Packages

>Seeded Rye Sub Rolls
>Sourdough Sub Rolls
>MultiGrain Sub Rolls
>Pumpernickel Sub Rolls

As mentioned, the Chocolate Chunk Cookie (pictured below) is currently the only item in the 'Marketside' private brand fresh baked goods line. But there are more SKUs to come soon.
We said Walmart would be introducing the 'Marketside' breads and baked goods "soon" in this March 31, 2010 piece: Walmart Adds Additional Marketside Fresh Food Items to Marketside.com Not Long After Our February Reports. They retailer has done so.

The new fresh-baked bread, sub roll and baked goods lines join Walmart's other 'Marketside' store brand packaged food items - fresh-prepared foods, take-and-bake pizza's, packaged produce and salsa, giving Walmart Stores, Inc. 'Marketside' "fresh" items in three categories: Deli, produce and bakery. [Click here for a selection of past stories about Walmart's 'Marketside' brand items in the fresh-prepared foods and produce categories.]

The 'Marketside' items - and the categories they're in - are very similar in style, ingredient profile and packaging to what Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has done with its fresh&easy brand, which it uses in all categories, including fresh-prepared foods/deli, and bakery.

Unlike Tesco's Fresh & Easy though, which is only able to sell the fresh&easy brand items in its 163 small-format stores in California, southern Nevada and Metro Phoenix, Arizona, Walmart is able to offer its 'Marketside' "fresh" items for sale in its thousands of supercenters (and some discount format stores) and Neighborhood Market supermarkets in the U.S., as well as in its four small-format 'marketside by Walmart' food and grocery stores in the suburban Phoenix, Arizona cities of Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert and Chandler.

Walmart is currently developing additional 'Marketside' brand items in the fresh-prepared foods, pre-packaged produce and fresh bread/baked goods categories.

The mega-retailer is also rolling out the 'Marketside' store brand items to additional stores, such as the many recent discount format stores its been converting to hybrid supercenters.

Walmart Adds Additional Marketside Fresh Food Items to Marketside.com Not Long After Our February Reports

Walmart has now added its Marketside private brand fresh soups, which we reported on in February [Walmart Introducing New Ready-To-Heat Prepared Entrees, Fresh Soups Under its Marketside Brand], to its marketside.com Web site. There are eight varieties in the ready-to-heat soup line.

In addition, Walmart just-recently added its eight-item Marketside refrigerated take-and-bake pizza line (pictured at the top) to the site.

The pizzas were the very first item Walmart rolled out in its Marketside ready-to-heat and ready-to-eat, prepared foods line. It introduced the pizzas in selected stores in fall 2009. The refrigerated pizzas take about 17-19 minutes to bake at in a conventional oven.

Walmart has recently given the Marketside pizza package a makeover, giving it a new look, and bringing its graphic design in line with all of the other Marketside private brand prepared foods products introduced to date.

You can view the pizzas, soups and other items at the http://www.marketside.com/ site.

The reason the soup line have now been added to marketside.com is because Walmart has rolled the items out to many more of its Supercenters and Neighborhood Market supermarkets than was the case when we reported on the new Marketside store brand prepared foods items in February.

The pizzas were only recently added to marketside.com because of the packaging makeover mentioned above.

Next up for brand Marketside is a line of artisian breads and baked goods. Walmart is currently preparing to start introducing some of the items in selected stores soon, we've learned.

Additional varieties of Marketside fresh, prepared entrees and other ready-to-heat and ready-to-eat food items are also in the works, as we've previously elaborated on in a number of the posts linked below.

Walmart's Marketside: Recent Biography

>March 9, 2010: Walmart Adds Two More SKUs to its Marketside Ready-To-Heat Fresh, Prepared Entree Line

>March 2, 2010: Walmart Launching New 'Marketside Fresh Garden Salsa' Line Under its Fast-Growing Fresh Foods Store Brand

>February 28, 2010: Walmart Launching New Value-Added Pre-Packaged Fresh Produce Line Under its Marketside Fresh Foods Brand

>February 28, 2010: Walmart Introducing New Ready-To-Heat Prepared Entrees, Fresh Soups Under its Marketside Brand

>January 9, 2010: Walmart's 'marketside': What's 'In-Store' for 2010?

>December 21, 2009: Wither Walmart's Small-Format 'marketside' Stores and Format?

Walmart Adds Two More SKUs to its Marketside Ready-To-Heat Fresh, Prepared Entree Line

Fresh, Prepared Foods Merchandising

Walmart Stores, Inc. has added two additional SKUs to its Marketside ready-to-heat, fresh prepared entree line, which Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report on that we're aware of.

The two additional fresh, prepared entree SKUs, sold in 3 pound family-style size packages, are: Lasagna With Meat Sauce (pictured at the top) and Chicken Enchiladas (pictured below). (We recall a similar Chicken Enchiladas entree - but not in the same packaging or same quality product - packed under the Sam's Club store brand, in the past.)
That makes four SKUs in the Marketside fresh, prepared entree line we've been able to document thus far: Mac N' Cheese With Bacon, Rigatoni With Italian Sausage; and now the Chicken Enchilada and Lasagna With Meat Sauce varieties.

Walmart has posted pictures of the two entree varieties on its marketside.com Web site. The two Marketside entree items we reported on in February (Mac N' Cheese With Bacon and Rigatoni With Italian sausage) weren't up on the site at the time. They are now, along with the Chicken Enchilada and Lasagna With Meat Sauce SKUs.

The marketside.com Web site also has some (but not all of the SKUs in the line) of the Marketside bagged and packaged fresh produce items we reported on in the February piece [Walmart Launching New Value-Added Pre-Packaged Fresh Produce Line Under its Marketside Fresh Foods Brand] pictured as well. All of the SKUs are listed in our story.

Further, the Marketside fresh soup line we reported on in this February 28, 2010 piece [Walmart Introducing New Ready-To-Heat Prepared Entrees, Fresh Soups Under its Marketside Brand] and the Marketside fresh salsa line we reported on in this March 2, 2010 post [Walmart Launching New 'Marketside Fresh Garden Salsa' Line Under its Fast-Growing Fresh Foods Store Brand] aren't depicted on marketside.com, perhaps because they're too new

There's also a "Bakery" tab on marketside.com. In case you're wondering when you see it, the tab is for a new line of Marketside fresh breads and baked goods the retailer will be introducing soon. Currently if you click the tab it says "Coming Soon." More to come on that "soon" in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Fresh & Easy Buzz has been out front in reporting and writing about Walmart Stores, Inc.'s development of its new Marketside fresh foods store brand.

For example, see the posts linked below:

>January 9, 2010: Walmart's 'marketside': What's 'In-Store' for 2010?

>December 21, 2009: December 21, 2009 piece - Wither Walmart's Small-Format 'marketside' Stores and Format?

>Click here and here for a selection of additional 'marketside' past posts.

Walmart Launching New 'Marketside Fresh Garden Salsa' Line Under its Fast-Growing Fresh Foods Store Brand

Fresh, Prepared Foods Merchandising

In addition to the new Marketside fresh, ready-to-heat soup, prepared entree and value-added, pre-packaged fresh produce lines we reported on and wrote about in these to pieces on February 28 [Walmart Introducing New Ready-To-Heat Prepared Entrees, Fresh Soups Under its Marketside Brand and Walmart Launching New Value-Added Pre-Packaged Fresh Produce Line Under its Marketside Fresh Foods Brand], Walmart Stores, Inc. is spicing things up by launching a new line of Marketside store brand fresh salsa in seven varieties.

The product is called Marketside Fresh Garden Salsa.

The seven SKU's in the new line are: Mild, Medium and Hot; Chipotle Garlic; Sweet Onion; Mango Peach; and Black Bean & Corn

The salsa comes in 18 oz plastic tubs, as you can see in the photograph at the top. The hot variety is pictured above.

The packaging for the fresh salsa is the same as that of the 10 oz Marketside Mild Pico De Gallo Salsa item in our February 28 report.

Walmart is in the process of rolling out the new Marketside fresh salsa line to selected Supercenters and Neighborhood Market supermarkets in the U.S. We've been told the line also could be sold in Walmart's discount format stores.

The 18 oz Marketside Fresh Garden Salsa line - like its cousin the 10 oz Pico De Gallo, which in the full line comes in medium and hot varieties in addition to the mild - is targeted to be merchandised in the refrigerated sections in the produce departments in Walmart stores. We suspect it might find its way to the self-serve refrigerated deli sections in some stores as well.

The unit price point for the new Marketside 18 oz Fresh Garden Salsa is about $2.99, depending on the region where a store is in the U.S.

Walmart has posted the new Marketside value-added, packaged fresh produce line (plus the Pico De Gallo Salsa) and the Marketside family-sized entrees from our February 28 story on its fairly recently revamped http://www.marketside.com/ Web site.

However, as of today, the new Marketside Garden Fresh Salsa line - or the ready-to-heat soup line we reported on also on February 28 - isn't included or depicted on the marketside.com site.