New 'Marketside' Brand Fresh Food Items From Walmart - Part Deux

Private Brand Showcase

In the Private Brand Showcase piece linked here - December 18, 2010: Walmart Launches New 'Marketside' Fresh Food Lines - Plus A 'Fresh' Campaign to Create Brand Buzz - we wrote about (and included photographs) three new fresh food product lines, along with some new item line extensions, Walmart Stores, Inc. recently introduced under its fast-growing "Marketside" brand.

Today we thought we would give Fresh & Easy Buzz readers an additional pictorial look at some of the new items not pictured in the story on Saturday.

Pictured above, the items are, from left to right:

>"Marketside Mushroom And Cheese Half-Moons and Grilled Chicken and Spinach Ravioli. The varieties are two of the numerous SKUs (and shapes) in the new"Marketside" brand refrigerated fresh pasta line, which we wrote about in the in the Saturday piece. [See - December 18, 2010: Walmart Launches New 'Marketside' Fresh Food Lines - Plus A 'Fresh' Campaign to Create Brand Buzz

>"Marketside" Chicken Tortilla Soup. This a fairly new item (line extension) Walmart has added to it existing "Marketside" line of ready-to-heat, fresh-refrigerated soups. [See - February 28, 2010: Walmart Introducing New Ready-To-Heat Prepared Entrees, Fresh Soups Under its Marketside Brand]

>"Marketside" Classic Smooth Guacamole. This SKU is a larger version (2/7oz Trays instead of pouches) of the same item we ran a picture of in the piece on Saturday. That item: "Marketside" Classic Smooth Guacamole; but in 6/2oz Pouches instead of the trays. [See the photo at the December 18, 2010 story link above.

>"Marketside" Artisan Petite Cranberry Walnut Loaf. This new specialty bread is one of a number of new varieties Walmart is launching to go with its existing "Marketside" bread, roll and baked goods lines. [See - September 9, 2010: Walmart Introduces 'Marketside' Brand Packaged Fresh-Baked Breads, Sub Rolls and Chocolate Chunk Cookie]

>"Marketside" Roasted Garlic Hummus. The variety is one flacor in the multi-SKU new line of "Marketside" packaged, fresh-refrigerated Hummus.

As we noted in the story on Saturday, Walmart Stores, Inc. is developing additional new "Marketside" private brand fresh food lines, and preparing to introduce some of those new lines, along with numerous new item line extensions, in the first half of 2011.

Stay tuned.

Related Stories

March 31, 2010: Walmart Adds Additional Marketside Fresh Food Items to Marketside.com Not Long After Our February Reports

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

[Private Brand Showcase is a regular feature of Fresh & Easy Buzz. In it we report on, write about and offer analysis and commentary on the fast-growing private or retailer brand (sometimes called private label) movement, along with featuring various private brand products being offered by Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, along with those of other grocers and retailers operating various types of formats. Below is a selection of 2010 stories in our Private Brand Showcase]

Private Brand Showcase 2010

December 18, 2010: Walmart Launches New 'Marketside' Fresh Food Lines - Plus A 'Fresh' Campaign to Create Brand Buzz

December 13, 2010: House (Sparking) Cider Rules at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

October 30, 2010: Raley's Launches New 'Raley's TO GO' Pre-Packaged, Refrigerated Fresh-Prepared Foods Line

October 16, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market 'Bags' the Humble and Nutritious Plantain For A New Snack Chip Item

October 16, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Private Brand Kids' Cereal Wins Bronze 'Pentaward' in 2010 Packaging Design Competition

October 9, 2010: 'Use Me': Should Reusable Packaging Be Part of Tesco's Sustainable Private Brand Offering? A Student-Designer Thinks So

September 27, 2010: First Items in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's 'eatwell' Brand Frozen Foods Line Arriving in Store Freezer Cases This Week

September 4, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Unveils New fresh&easy 'goodness' Brand Items and Packaging

August 29, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Expanding its fresh&easy 'goodness' Co-Branded Line; Launching Numerous New Items

August 18, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Extending 'eatwell' Healthy Foods' Private Brand Into Dry Grocery Category

July 21, 2010: 'Sipsational' & 'Quenchtastic': Safeway Introduces New 21-Flavor Line of Soft Drinks Under 'refreshe' Private Brand

July 17, 2010: New Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Clock-Shaped Private Brand Candy Line Hits the Shelves at Fresh & Easy

July 12, 2010: Tesco Launches Private Brand 'Lasagne Sandwich' in the UK Today...With No Apologies to The Earl of Sandwich

June 24, 2010: New Fresh & Easy Clock Logo-Shaped Candies Are A Pretty Sweet Idea

May 11, 2010: Tesco Might Want to Get 'fresh & naked' at 'fresh & easy'

April 2, 2010: Fresh & Easy's New 'EatWell' Healthier Fresh, Prepared Foods Brand to Hit Stores on April 7

April 11, 2010: When it Comes to Fresh, Prepared Foods, New York City's Duane Reade is Simply 'deLish' for Walgreens

February 22, 2010: Food, Drug Retailers With Stores in California, Nevada & Arizona Honored for Private Label-Store Brands' Excellence

[Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Sophistisishe.com.]

Walmart Launches New 'Marketside' Fresh Food Lines - Plus A 'Fresh' Campaign to Create Brand Buzz

Private Brand Showcase: Fresh Foods

Walmart Stores, Inc. has been busy creating and launching new fresh food product lines under its "Marketside" private brand, along with adding new SKUs to its existing lines, since we last reported on and wrote about the introduction of a new line of "Marketside"artisan breads and related baked goods in September. [Read the story - September 9, 2010: Walmart Introduces 'Marketside' Brand Packaged Fresh-Baked Breads, Sub Rolls and Chocolate Chunk Cookie.]

Since then, Walmart has launched three notable new "Marketside" lines: a line of ready-to-use refrigerated dips (for chips, crackers, fruits and veggies); a cook-in-three-minute fresh, refrigerated pasta line; and a companion line of ready-to-heat fresh-prepared pasta sauces.


Dips: The extensive line features numerous SKUs, including Guacamole; a range of ranch dips like Chipotle Ranch and Buttermilk Ranch; Bleu Cheese; a cream cheese and vanilla bean fruit dip; and others.


Fresh Pasta: The "Marketside" line of fresh, refrigerated pasta includes numerous pasta shapes, along with ravioli and tortelloni varieties filled with meat and cheese, like the Three Cheese Tortelloni pictured above. All of the fresh pasta varieties take three minutes to boil.

Pasta Sauce: The "Marketside" refrigerated, fresh-prepared pasta sauces come in tomato-based and cream varieties, as well as pesto. The cream-based sauce varieties include the Asiago and Smoked Provolone cheese sauce pictured above. The tomato-based marinara sauce varieties include the Tuscan-Style Marinara Sauce, also pictured above.

Walmart has yet to add the new "Marketside" fresh pasta, pasta sauce and dip lines, as well as some of the new SKUs added to the existing lines, to its Marketside.com product website.

Walmart's "Marketside" private brand now includes lines and products in the fresh-prepared foods, fresh produce and bakery categories.

The fresh-prepared food lines include both ready-to-eat items - grab-and-go salads and sandwiches; party trays; Rotisserie chicken and other meat and non-meat items and side dishes; plus the dips and sauces - and ready-to-heat or quick-cook items, such as entrees, side dishes, pizzas, pastas and sauces.

There's also a line of "Marketside" packaged fresh cheese and a line of packaged lunch meats which are sold in some Walmart stores.

The fresh food products are sold in the retailer's Walmart Supercenter, Walmart Neighborhood Market and marketside by Walmart banner stores in the U.S. Additionally, selected "marketside" items are also sold in some of the retailer's discount format stores.

The product grouping above - the ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken and take-and-bake pizza, along with a bag of fresh spinach, a loaf of fresh bread and a cookie - is a good graphic depiction of the "home meal replacement" marketing positioning focus Walmart is using for its "Marketside" fresh foods brand.

Home meal replacement positioning, building brand buzz

Walmart's strategic vision and marketing strategy for "Marketside" is to create a multi-line family of fresh food products and position them to shoppers as an affordable, fresh and high-quality "home meal solutions" brand and concept, which it has started doing, using a handful of marketing and promotional vehicles.

The retailer's new campaign for "Marketside," which began the first week of November, is designed to create online buzz around the brand by engaging food-oriented bloggers and "mommy" bloggers, many who are members of Walmart's moms' blogger group.

The "home meal replacement" positioning for brand "Marketside" is the central theme of the campaign. Boulder, Colorado-based design and corporate identity firm Mighty Fudge Studios, the creators of the "Marketside" product packaging, prepared an attractive and detailed collateral piece for the week-long promotion. The package was sent to the bloggers as an information piece about the brand, along with inviting them to receive a selection of free "Marketside" products over a period of time, which they could try and hopefully write about in their respective blogs, thereby creating some desired online grassroots buzz for and around the brand.

The marketing communications piece (pictured above) uses the "home meal solutions" positioning as its overall theme, focusing the "Marketside" brand message on that key element.

A number of the food-oriented and "mommy" bloggers who received the free products and market communication piece have since posted about the "Marketside" products, along with posting recipes they created using the fresh food items.

More brand 'Marketside' to come

In addition to introducing the new "Marketside" fresh food lines, Walmart has added new SKUs to many of its existing lines over the last couple months, such as new fresh bread items, ready-to-heat refrigerated soup varieties, value-added produce items and a some others.

New line creation and SKU expansion are far from over at Walmart for brand "Marketside." The retailer is currently working on additional new fresh food lines, including prepared-foods, and new SKUs to add to the existing lines, for introduction in the first half of 2011.

Stay tuned.

Related Stories

September 9, 2010: Walmart Introduces 'Marketside' Brand Packaged Fresh-Baked Breads, Sub Rolls and Chocolate Chunk Cookie

March 31, 2010: Walmart Adds Additional Marketside Fresh Food Items to Marketside.com Not Long After Our February Reports

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 Introducing New Ready-To-Heat Prepared Entrees, Fresh Soups Under its Marketside Brand

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

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?