At The 'Brand Factory': Safeway Stores' Launches Newest Private Brand - 'Safeway Kitchens'

Some of Safeway Stores' new 'Safeway Kitchens' bread. Top two shelves, 100% Whole Wheat. Third shelf from top, Oats & Nuts. Bottom: two varieties of white bread. [Credit all photos to Fresh & Easy Buzz.]

Private Brand Showcase

The late Californian Walt Disney liked to call his entertainment and theme park empire the "Dream Factory," as a way of putting an emphasis on the larger imaginative and creative processes of what the Disney Company did, rather than merely describing the products it produced, marketed and sold. 

We'd like to suggest a similar, although less lofty, moniker for Pleasanton, California-based supermarket chain Safeway Stores, Inc.

That moniker, the "Private Brand Factory," is based on the fact Safeway keeps churning out new private brands in a way similar to how Disney continues to create dreams, even without Walt.

Exhibit A: Safeway's latest just-out new brand is "Safeway Kitchens," the second new private brand the grocery chain has introduced this year.

So far the brand is being used on a line of fresh bread, rolls, hot dog and hamburger buns, english muffins, bagels and specialty breads, all of which have just recently been introduced in the grocer/brand-maker's stores.

We've identified about 59 SKUs so far in the "Safeway Kitchens" brand. The SKUs are listed at the end of the story.

The "Safeway Kitchens" brand and bread-bakery items appear to be positioned as mid-range in terms of the price-value equation.

The brand and items are neither upscale bread and bakery SKUs nor are they discount products with rock-bottom retail price-points, based on our observation and analysis.

Instead, "Safeway Kitchens" looks to be positioned directly against mainstream bread-bakery category brands like Oroweat and Natures Pride, as Safeway's private brand alternative.

For example, the 22-24 ounce 100% Whole Wheat and Oats & Nut loaves pictured above and below (along with all the other similar 22-24 ounce varieties) currently retail for $3.29 everyday in Safeway's stores in the particular region of California where the photographs were taken this week. That's slightly below the identical SKUs of the two brands mentioned above. Safeway is currently offering the "Safeway Kitchens" bread varieties at an introductory price of $2.99 each.

Earlier this year Safeway introduced a line of breads and related category items under its "Open Nature" natural foods brand.

The 22-24 ounce bread varieties - Whole Wheat, Multi-Grain and Oats & Nuts, for example - are virtually identical (see the photo above and the one below) to the "Safeway Kitchens" breads, except the "Open Nature" breads don't contain high-fructose corn syrup and artificial additives, colorings and preservatives like the "Safeway Kitchens" breads do.

The everyday price-points we've seen on the "Open Nature" breads are slightly higher than those on the Safeway Kitchens" breads, although this week both brands are being offered in-store for the same promotional price.

A Safeway Stores source told us this week that the grocer - and prolific private brand producer - will eventually selectively extend the "Safeway Kitchens" brand into other categories beyond  bread and bakery but those are the focus at present.

Since the grocery chain already uses "Safeway" as its category-wide (except dairy) value and price-focused brand, such a niche-oriented branding strategy for "Safeway Kitchens" would make sense to us, along with the fact the "kitchens" name in the brand tends to suggest categories like bread and bakery - and perhaps deli and a couple other "foodie-oriented" or comfort categories the name resonates with - rather than being used in an across the board manner.

For example, we doubt if you'll see mouse traps in the store's general merchandise sections under the "Safeway Kitchens" brand, even though the kitchen is probably the primary room in the house where most of us use mouse traps. But doing so would be taking functional branding to its illogical extreme, particularly if the brand name also finds its way to a line of cheese.

Ice cream might be a good category to use the "Safeway Kitchens" brand name on though, as would selected fresh and shelf-stable specialty and gourmet foods items. Spices might be nice as well. Perhaps also comfort-type foods like shelf-stable macaroni and cheese, to name a few.

But for now Safeway Stores' newest private brand, "Safeway Kitchens," is being used on breads, rolls, buns and other bakery category specialty items which are merchandised in the mainline bread sections in the stores and not in the in-store bakeries.

So far this year, Safeway has launched two new brands - "Safeway Kitchens and "Open Nature" - at its private brand factory in Pleasanton, adding to its already extensive product brand portfolio, which includes two brands, "O Organics" and "Eating Right," which the grocery chain is marketing to other supermarket chains and wholesale grocers in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.

French-based Carrefour, which is the second largest food and grocery retailer in the world after number one Walmart, is selling "O Organics" in some of its stores in Asia, for example.

And a number of regional supermarket chains in the U.S., like Albertsons LLC's Southwest division, Big Y Foods, Brookshire Brothers and others, are currently offering numerous SKUs of either "O Organics" or "Eating Right" (healthy foods brand), or both, in their stores.

Safeway Stores has been busy this year developing and launching its new "Safeway Kitchens" private brand and rolling out what we estimate are several hundred new SKUs in the dry grocery, frozen, perishables, fresh meat, and produce categories under its "Open Nature" brand. But the grocer/brand-maker continues to create new private brands at its brand factory in Pleasanton.

Safeway's strategic plan is to develop a core competency at and become a major and serious player in brand development and consumer packaged goods marketing, and we aren't talking just about private brands sold in its stores, although the 1,700-plus supermarkets serve as the obvious major source of sales for all its branded products.

Safeway has already achieved a major milestone in this regard: It's "O Organics" brand is now the number one organic foods brand by annual sales (about $1.2 billion) in the United States. That includes both manufacturers' and retailer brands.

"Safeway Kitchens" is Safeway Stores' newest consumer packaged goods brand - but it's far from its last one.

"Safeway Kitchens" SKUs

• Safeway Kitchens English Muffins, 100% Whole Wheat 6/14 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Very Low Sodium Multi-Grain 16 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Texas Toast Enriched 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, French Toast 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, 100% Whole Wheat 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Enriched White Sandwich 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Enriched White 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Wheat 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Enriched Butter Top White 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Butter Top Wheat 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Crushed Wheat 22 oz
• Safeway Kitchens English Muffins, Extra Crisp, 12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Giant Wheat 8/18.5 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Enriched Giant 8/18.5 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Giant Sesame 8/18.5 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Potato 8/15 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hot Dog Buns, Potato 8/15 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hot Dog Buns, Enriched 8/11 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Enriched 8/11 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Enriched Giant 8/20 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Enriched 8/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hot Dog Buns, Enriched 8/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bagels, Plain Sliced 6/18 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bagels, Cinnamon Raisin Sliced 6/18 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, 12 Grain 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, 15 Grains Plus Omega 3 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Healthy Grains 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Crushed Wheat 8/13 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hot Dog Buns, Crushed Wheat 8/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Enriched Sesame 8/20 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Sourdough Sliced Square Loaf 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Sourdough Sliced Long Loaf 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hot Dog Buns, Wheat 6/14 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Cinnamon Raisin 16 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Rolls, Brown & Serve Sourdough 8/13 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Sandwich White 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Sandwich Wheat 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Egg 8/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hot Dog Buns, Egg 8/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens English Muffins, Extra Crisp 10/20 oz
• Safeway Kitchens English Muffins, Cinnamon Raisin 6/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns,Wheat, Premium 8/21 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, 100% Whole Wheat, Country 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, 8 Grain 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens English Muffins, Sourdough 6/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Oats & Nuts 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bagels, Cinnamon Raisin 6/20 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bagels, Sliced Plain 6/20 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Country Buttermilk 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, 100% Whole Wheat 16 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Country Potato 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Country Buttermilk Wheat 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Sourdough 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens English Muffins, Honey Wheat Berry 6/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Potato 8/15 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hot Dog Buns, Potato 8/15 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Hamburger Buns, Enriched Sesame 8/12 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Enriched Split Top White 24 oz
• Safeway Kitchens Bread, Split Top Wheat 24 oz

Related Stories

January 5, 2011: Safeway Adds 'Open Nature' to its Natural-Organic-Healthy Foods' Private Brand Portfolio

February 7, 2011: Getting There First...Plus, Are Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Safeway Traveling Down A Similar Private Brand Aisle?

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

April 8, 2011: The Branded 'Signature Cafe' in Safeway Stores' Soon to Open 'Social Safeway' in Washington D.C. Should Turn A Few Heads

February 25, 2011: Safeway CEO Steve Burd Says Fresh, Prepared Foods Sales at $100 Million Annually

Additionally, Click on this link - private brand showcase - to read past stories in our 'Private Brand Showcase' feature.