Move Over Chipotle - Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Introduces its Own Brand of Burrito Bowls

Private Brand Showcase: Fresh-Prepared Foods

Taking a cue perhaps from the super-popular Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant chain, Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has introduced a new line of refrigerated, fresh-prepared ready-to-heat burrito bowls under its fresh&easy kitchen fresh-prepared foods private brand.

The 15 ounce burrito bowls (pictured at top), which come in three varieties -  pollo asado (chicken), carna asada (beef) and carnitas (pork) - recently hit the refrigerated display cases in the 183 Fresh & Easy fresh food and grocery markets in California (134 units), Arizona (28 stores) and Nevada (21 units).

In addition to the meat main course, the burrito bowls also contain ingredients eaters would expect to see inside a traditional tortilla-wrapped burrito, including rice and beans. We spotted corn in one of the bowls as well.

The everyday retail price for all three varieties of the fresh&easy kitchens' burrito bowls is currently $4.49 each.

Chipotle's famous burrito bowl.

Burrito bowls,which are essentially open-face traditional burritos in a bowl, have been a big hit for Chipotle Mexican Grill, the natural foods and ingredients-focused fast-casual food chain that's been growing rapidly since the first restaurants were opened in 1993.

There are currently about 1,200 Chipotle restaurants, with many more on the way. Most of the units are in the U.S. Chipotle also has restaurants in Canada and the United Kingdom.

The chain, which has as its motto "Food With Integrity," takes great care in sourcing the ingredients it uses in it ready-to-eat food items. It also puts a major effort on ethical and local food sourcing, along with environmental sustainability.

Unlike most U.S. fast food chains, Chipotle doesn't attempt to offer every sort of food combination possible on its menu, instead offering a limited assortment of items, using a mass customization approach that offers the basics, such as beef, chicken and pork as the base, and then lets customers customize the offering and build their own meals. For example, see the burrito bowl menu item here.

At $4.49 each, Fresh & Easy's burrito bowls retail for 30%-40% less than Chipotle's.

A number of U.S. natural foods companies have had frozen burrito bowls on the market for some time. Among the most popular brands are Evol Foods, Amy's Kitchen and Helen's Kitchen. The food-makers offer all-vegetarian varieties of burrito bowls as well as the meat versions. The frozen bowls take just a few minutes to heat in a microwave oven.

All three of the above noted brands are carried by numerous grocery chains, independents and natural foods retailers.

For example, Whole Foods Market carries the Evol and Amy's Kitchen burrito bowls in most of its 300-plus stores in the United States. The Amy's Kitchen brand is popular with big supermarket chains as well as in natural foods stores.

We've also spotted ready-to-heat and ready-to-eat burrito bowls in the deli/prepared-foods departments (refrigerated and heated cases) in a number of Whole Foods stores, including in California.

Iconic specialty grocery chain Trader Joe's also offers a line of frozen burrito bowls under its Trader Joe's store brand. Varieties include chicken, beef and pork.

California, Nevada and Arizona, the three western states where Tesco has its 183 Fresh & Easy stores, are, along with New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, the most Mexican food-focused states in America. The traditional burrito, for example, has become the first cousin to the hamburger among eaters in the three states, regardless of nationality.

The burrito bowl, in our culinary analysis, is sort of the California-Mex version of the traditional burrito - a blend of Mexican food tradition meets California cuisine.

From a culinary perspective the burrito bowl can also be conceptualized perhaps as the spicy Latin relative of the open-face sandwich, which is served on a plate rather than in a bowl though, and hasn't been a very popular restaurant item in America since the 1970's.

The burrito-minus-the-tortilla is becoming increasing popular, particularly in the west. Therefore, if Fresh & Easy displays its new private brand line of burrito bowls properly in-store, which it's currently doing in our observation, and promotes the new line, we think the grocer just might have a winner on its hands.

We also think a couple all-vegetarian burrito bowl varieties, and maybe a couple breakfast burrito bowls, are the  logical SKUs for a line extension when the time comes.

[Readers: Click on this link - private brand showcase - to read a selection of related stories.]

[Photo credit: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.]

Beyond the Press Release: A Couple Reasons Why Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is Expanding its 'Gourmet' Private Brand

Private Brand Showcase
Analysis

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market announced today it's introducing 12 new fresh-refrigerated ready-to-heat food items under its "fresh&easy Gourmet" brand, which it introduced into its stores in California, Nevada and Arizona in January of this year.

In today's press release, which you can view here, Tesco's Fresh & Easy says it introduced the "gourmet" fresh-prepared foods brand in February 2011.

It's true February is when Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market announced the debut of the brand in a press release.

But "fresh&easy Gourmet" was actually launched in January of this year, as we were the first to report in this story - January 21, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Introducing New 'Gourmet' Private Brand - about three weeks before the fresh food and grocery chain announced the launch of the first batch of items under the brand, which it did on February 8 in this press release.

[Read our story here - February 8, 2011 - Private Brand Showcase Déjà Vu: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Announces its New 'Gourmet' Brand - along with this piece from the day before - February 7, 2011: Getting There First...Plus, Are Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Safeway Traveling Down A Similar Private Brand Aisle? - for details and extensive background and analysis on the "fresh&easy Gourmet brand.]

The 12 new items in the grocer's "fresh&easy Gourmet" line are divided into three categories - fresh-prepared meals, Gourmet (meals) for two and fresh pizzas. All the items are refrigerated and ready-to-heat. (See a list of the 12 new items here.)

Upscale-specialty focus continues

The introduction of the additional SKUs in the "Gourmet" fresh-prepared foods' line just six months after the introduction of the brand is further evidence of an important phenomenon we first pointed out, based on our reporting, observation and analysis, in late 2010 and have continued to offer evidence of since then about Fresh Easy's private brand focus.

That phenomenon is the grocer has since late 2010 focused (not exclusively of course) its own-brand efforts into a more upscale-oriented specialty and higher-end niche in order to attempt to create private brand product differentiation vis-a-vis its competitors, as well as in an attempt to come out with products that can potentially offer higher gross margins, which is something Tesco's Fresh & Easy needs to achieve in a major way. The jury remains out in our analysis as to how this strategy is working thus far.

The quote from John Burry, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's chief commercial officer (head of buying and merchandising in U.S. industry terminology) in the press release issued today also strengthens our analysis, first developed last year, that the Tesco-owned chain of 176-stores has been and continues to move into a more specialty-gourmet-upscale niche in terms of its primary private brand development focus.

The quote: "Customers love our Gourmet products, so we expanded the range with some truly unique and exciting meals only available at Fresh & Easy," said John Burry, Fresh & Easy Chief Commercial Officer. "We are happy to continue to bring more restaurant-quality, fresh food options for our customers to eat at home, as more and more people look for ways to save money."

Our point isn't that Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is focusing exclusively on this higher-end and specialty niche. Rather, it's where the grocer has been putting the majority of its private brand focus, starting in late 2010 and continuing to the present.

More unique niche items, higher gross margins

It's all about trying to give consumers a reason to shop at Fresh & Easy - differentiation; unique own-brand products. Think Trader's redux, for example, except in the case of fresh-prepared foods Trader Joe's isn't a key player, as it prefers the frozen foods' category over fresh-prepared when it comes to meals, side-dished and the like.

It's also all about gross margin. In order to break-even with Fresh & Easy by the end of Tesco's 2012/13 fiscal year, which ends February 2013 (about 19 months from now), which Tesco CEO Philip Clarke has publicly said will happen, the grocer must get its gross margins (and overall operating margin) up dramatically. [See - April 19, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Posts Biggest One-Year Loss Yet - $307 Million Loss on Sales of $818 Million.]

Increasing gross margins is one reason Tesco's Fresh & Easy is focusing more on the upscale-specialty niche when it comes to private brand new product development. than it has in the past.

For example, the new "fresh&easy Gourmet" meals for two retail for $9.99 each, which is a higher price-point than the grocer's similar "fresh&easy brand" prepared meals of a similar serving size.

The gross margins just aren't there to date with Fresh & Easy's overall private brand offering, which comprises about 65% of the about 5,000 SKUs offered in its stores.

The higher-end, higher retail price-point items carry a higher gross margin than the mainstream "fresh&easy" brand items do, which explains in part its strategy of focusing on them more so at present.

Expect to see the trend continue when it comes to the grocer's private brand development across all categories.

Related Stories

February 8, 2011: Private Brand Showcase Déjà Vu: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Announces its New 'Gourmet' Brand

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

January 21, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Introducing New 'Gourmet' Private Brand

December 23, 2010: New Items Show Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Niche-Specialty Category Private Brand Development Focus

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

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July 20, 2011: Limited Edition Sunnyside Farms Ice Cream Flavors, Including the Latest Featuring an Iconic Cookie Brand, Hit Save Mart and Raley's Stores For the Summer Season

July 11, 2011: Tesco Developing New Flavors For 'ChokaBlok' Ice Cream Brand; Launching Range in Central Europe

July 7, 2011: Not Just A 'Flash in the Pan': Tesco's New Brand of the Same Name With Potential 'Fresh & Easy Twist' Hitting United Kingdom Store Shelves

July 6, 2011: Tesco Launches New 'Flash in the Pan' Brand Ready Meals in UK Stores; Files Brand Trademark in U.S.

June 26, 2011: Tesco Bringing Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's 'goodness for kids' Brand to the UK - With a 'Tesco' Twist

June 27, 2011: Tesco Introduces First Items in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market-Developed 'Tesco goodness for kids' Brand in United Kingdom Stores

June 23, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets' Owners' Eponymous Mike & Dave's Wing Sauce Grows Display Wings

June 19, 2011: Safeway Has A Picnic in San Francisco Featuring the 'World's Longest Picnic Table' to Showcase its 'Open Nature' Natural Foods' Brand

June 11, 2011: Sliders, Meatballs and More - Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Introducing Six New Heat & Serve Food Items

You can click on this link - private brand showcase - to read all the stories in our Private Brand Showcase feature.

Termination of Supply Arrangement With Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Results in Closing of Los Angeles-Based Pacific Pride Seafood Inc.

Pacific Pride Seafood Inc., which until last week was the supplier of fresh and frozen seafood to Tesco's El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, has let all 25 of its employees go and closed its doors at 3264 Mines Avenue in Los Angeles.

As we reported in Fresh & Easy Buzz yesterday [See - June 19, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Terminates Pacific Pride Seafood Inc. as Supplier; Company's Owner Tells Source He's Going Out of Business] Tesco's Fresh & Easy terminated its supply arrangement with Pacific Pride Seafood in order to fold its fish and seafood procurement into its in-house meat (and now seafood) operation, which it bought from its then quasi-in-house former meat supplier 2 Sisters Food Group last year.

Pacific Pride Seafood is owned by Charles Love, who's also the sales manager for the privately-held seafood wholesale company which until Friday, June 19 when it closed its doors had been in operation in Los Angeles, serving retail and food-service customers throughout Southern California since 1987.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy represented the majority of Love's sales at Pacific Pride Seafood Inc.

Losing the account supplying the 175 Fresh & Easy stores in California, Nevada and Arizona was too severe of a financial blow to Pacific Pride Seafood. Therefore, he was forced to close the nearly 25-year-old business.

Related Stories

June 19, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Terminates Pacific Pride Seafood Inc. as Supplier; Company's Owner Tells Source He's Going Out of Business

June 20, 2010 - NLRB Judge Rules Against Key Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group' in Labor Relations Violations Case

June 21, 2010: The Missing Link in Tesco's Purchase of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Meat Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group'

August 27, 2008 UFCW Union Reports Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Prepared Foods Supplier to Labor Board For What it Says is Unfair Firing of Six Employees

March 9, 2009: An English Village, A British Fresh Chicken Brand and Tesco Fresh & Easy's New 'Buxted' Discount Fresh Meat Brand: What Do All Three Have in Common?

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Terminates Pacific Pride Seafood Inc. as Supplier; Company's Owner Tells Source He's Going Out of Business

Breaking Buzz

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has ended its supply and procurement relationship with Los Angeles, California-based Pacific Pride Seafood Inc., which has been the 175-store (California, Nevada and Arizona) fresh food and grocery chain's supplier of fresh and frozen fish and seafood since the first Fresh & Easy stores were opened in November 2007, Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned.

Friday, June 18 was the official end of the fish and seafood supply partnership between Fresh & Easy and Pacific Pride Seafood, which has been in business in Southern California for over 20-years, according to our sources.

Rather than using Pacific Pride, which is located at 3264 Mines Avenue in Los Angeles, or another wholesaler as its seafood product supplier, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is folding its fresh and frozen fish and seafood procurement into its in-house meat procurement operation, which was previously 2 Sisters Food Group, its quasi-in-house meat supplier from 2007-2010, which it bought out last year.

Since it was founded in 1987, Pacific Pride Seafood has primarily been a wholesaler of fresh and frozen fish and seafood to restaurants and smaller retail food stores in Southern California.

However, in 2006-2007 when Tesco's Fresh & Easy was starting out, one of its meat and seafood category buyers who had previously done business with Pacific Pride Seafood introduced the owner of the company to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's head of fresh foods, meat and seafood procurement. Not long after that the grocery chain and Pacific Pride established the supply relationship, and the wholesaler has been Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's supplier from 2007 until now.

Over the last five years Tesco's Fresh & Easy has become Pacific Pride Seafoods' largest customer in terms of dollar sales and business.

On Friday, a regular reader of Fresh & Easy Buzz, who's spent many years in the industry in Southern California and has been friends with the owner of Pacific Pride Seafood as well as a customer for many years, told us the company's owner called to tell him Friday that as a result of the termination of his business with Fresh & Easy, he plans to let all his employees go and close the seafood wholesale company, which was founded in 1987.

We tried to contact Charles Love, the owner/sales manager, or any other employee at Pacific Pride Seafood on Friday to verify the closing. However, we weren't able to get in contact with any employees. Instead, despite a number of calls placed, we couldn't get through to a live employee but only the company voice mail and the greetings message.

The Southern California industry source who's close to the owner of Pacific Pride Seafood told us a second time on Friday though that in the fairly long telephone conversation he had with the company's owner, he told our source he has no choice but to close privately-held Pacific Pride because losing the Fresh & Easy account at this time is too great of a financial loss to make up for with other accounts, adding he put too many eggs in one basket, Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, and now he's forced to close the nearly 25-year-old seafood wholesale company.

Related Stories

June 20, 2010 - NLRB Judge Rules Against Key Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group' in Labor Relations Violations Case
June 21, 2010: The Missing Link in Tesco's Purchase of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Meat Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group'

August 27, 2008 UFCW Union Reports Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Prepared Foods Supplier to Labor Board For What it Says is Unfair Firing of Six Employees

March 9, 2009: An English Village, A British Fresh Chicken Brand and Tesco Fresh & Easy's New 'Buxted' Discount Fresh Meat Brand: What Do All Three Have in Common?

Sliders, Meatballs and More - Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Introducing Six New Heat & Serve Food Items

Private Brand Showcase: Fresh-Prepared Foods

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is introducing six new private brand heat & serve, refrigerated fresh-prepared food items in its 175 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona.

The new fresh&easy brand fully-cooked, refrigerated items have an eat-with-your-hands and snacking-oriented emphasis and include: Beef Sliders (those popular mini-burgers), Meatball Trio (three varieties in one package), Buffalo (chicken) Wings, BBQ Boneless (chicken) Wings, Stuffed Mushrooms and Fully-Loaded Potato Skins.

The heat & serve items also fit into a party or celebration foods' theme, although we suspect Fresh & Easy wants customers to purchase the new items on a far more frequent basis than that.

Assuming shoppers are pleased with the taste and retail price, the Beef Sliders (which include cheese) and Meatball Trio items should sell particularly well for Fresh & Easy because both foods are currently popular among American eaters.

The popularity is thanks in large part to the fact numerous restaurants, including in California where 126 of the 175 Fresh & Easy stores are located, have for a couple years' now been offering sliders and a growing number of meatball varieties on their menus on a much more regular basis than has been the case in the past.

This development in turn ties into the retro-comfort food trend that started to emerge in the U.S. in early-to-mid 2009, following in the wake of the housing foreclosure, bank crisis and recession that began in 2008.

(Twenty eight of the Fresh & Easy stores are in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. The other 21 are in the metro Las Vegas region.)

Sliders and meatballs also fit into the currently popular trend of small plate meals. Additionally, the mini burgers play into another popular eating trend (and not just for kids) - hand-held foods.

Restaurant food trends, particularly when they are sustained over a couple years time, are often a good indicator of what kinds of new fresh-prepared food items grocers will introduce into their stores, in case you want to keep score at home.

There's nothing new in general about offering sliders for sale in a grocery store, however.

For example, the very popular White Castle (brand) Sliders have been available in the freezer cases at most grocery stores in the U.S. for many years. In fact, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market sells the White Castle brand mini burgers, which are the creation and claim to fame of the restaurant chain of the same name that's become world famous for its sliders, thanks in part to Harold and Kumar.

It will be interesting to see how consumers respond to Fresh & Easy' refrigerated Beef Sliders because it's often the case that refrigerated foods containing bread or buns like the grocer's sliders often turn-out and taste rubber-like after heating them in the microwave oven, which is one of the reasons 90-year-old White Castle made its grocery store sliders a frozen food item when it decided to launch the product a number of years ago.

Meatballs, perhaps because of their comfort food nature, are currently a popular food item at present.

Fresh & Easy's offering of three different varieties (trio) in the package is a potentially good one because one of the things many restaurants are currently doing is creating different versions of meatballs, other than the well known beef and sausage staples.

For example, among the more innovative (and tasty) meatball varieties we've seen on restaurant menus over the last year include versions made using lamb, venison and duck.

Additionally, we haven't seen refrigerated, ready-to-heat and fully-prepared sliders or meatballs in very many grocery store prepared foods' sections thus far. As such, again assuming customers like the taste and price, the fairly early-mover status on the offerings could aid Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in its sales of the new private brand prepared foods' items.

The other four new items, the two varieties of chicken wings, stuffed mushrooms and potato skins, are fairly common fresh-prepared foods items in grocery stores in California, Nevada, Arizona and elsewhere in the U.S.

For example, Safeway Stores offers all four items in its stores, as to numerous other grocers in the three states and specific market regions where Tesco has its Fresh & Easy stores.

As part of the label on the new items, Fresh & Easy uses the tag line "great for sharing," as you can see in the photographs. The message appears in our analysis to be placed there in hope it will serve as a suggestion to shoppers to pick up an extra package or two to share with friends and family.

Having just launched the new private brand heat & serve items, the grocer is offering them at an introductory promotional price as a way to generate trial, along with sampling the snack-oriented foods at its Kitchen Table demonstration stations, which will soon be going mobile (see here), in all 175 stores.

Related Stories

Readers: Click here to read the numerous past stories in our 'Private Brand Showcase' feature.

Most Recent

May 28, 2011: At The 'Brand Factory': Safeway Stores' Launches Newest Private Brand - 'Safeway Kitchens'

May 20, 2011: Eat My Brand: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's New Sandwich Cookies Offer A Brand Message With Every Bite

May 16, 2011: 'Wing Man-to-Wing Man' - Mollie Stone's Markets' 'Mike & Dave' Create, Set to Launch 'Personal Brand' Wing Sauce

May 12, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Launches New Meat, Poultry, Veggie 'Grill-Pack' Items; 'Bigmista' Going 'On the Road Again'

April 22, 2011: A Little About Those 'green things' At Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market on Earth Day 2011

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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.

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

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[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

Two Grocers, Fresh & Easy and Raley's Offer Two Very Different Approaches to Ready-to-Grill Fresh Meat Merchandising

Fresh Foods Category Merchandising: Meat, Poultry and Seafood

The upcoming three-day Memorial Day weekend holiday marks the "official" start of the grilling season for Americans, although with gas barbeques, covered patios and indoor grills, grilling season has become a nearly all-year affair in many parts of the U.S.

Grilling season offers food and grocery retailers the opportunity to not only increase sales of those center of the plate fresh meat items for grilling like beef, pork, poultry and seafood, but also of related items such as fresh produce, starches, condiments, breads, beverages, non-foods and more.

Over the last few years food retailers have increasingly been competing for shoppers' grilling season dollars, looking to create not only a competitive advantage over other grocers on the price (lowest) and quality (value) of fresh meat, poultry and seafood items, but also coming up with ways to ad value to those raw animal delights, which will find their way to a hot grill soon after being brought home from the supermarket. We call it: Ready-to-Grill fresh meat merchandising.

Two California grocery chains, El Segundo (Southern), California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and Sacramento-based Raley's, have each created different ways to ad value to fresh meat, poultry and seafood items sold in their stores for the prime grilling season and beyond. The goal of both grocers is the same: To increase fresh meat category sales by tapping into shoppers' desire for convenience in the form of ready-to-prepare foods.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which is owned by United Kingdom-based Tesco and has 159 stores in California (Southern California, Bakersfield and Fresno metro-areas in the Central Valley), southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, and annual sales of about $544 million, is introducing eight new fresh meat and chicken grill packs to its stores, adding to the six varieties it already offers.

The eight new fresh & easy branded grill packs are:

>12 Quarter Pound Hamburger Patties (3 lbs)

>Smokey BBQ Boneless Pork Chops (1 lb 4 oz)
>BBQ Marinated Chicken Thighs and Drumsticks (2 lbs 2 oz)
>Buffalo Marinated Chicken Thighs and Drumsticks (2 lbs 2oz)

>Lime & Cilantro Chicken Breast (1 lb 4 oz)

>Teriyaki Chicken Breast (1 lb 4 oz)

>Santa Maria Tri Tip

>Smokey Garlic Pork Tenderloin

Seven of the eight new grill pack items are value added, meaning they contain marinades, sauces and seasonings, so all shoppers (and grill-masters) need do is open the package and toss the meat on a hot grill.

The key customer proposition from Tesco's Fresh & Easy with the value-added grill packs is: convenience; ready-to-grill.

Raley's

Sacramento, California-based grocery chain Raley's, which operates 133 supermarkets under the Raley's, Bel-Air, Nob Hill Foods and Food Source banners in Northern California and has annual sales of about $3.4 billion, is taking a very different approach to adding value to the fresh meat, poultry and seafood items it sells in its stores, both for grilling season and everyday. Raley's recently introduced a "Marinades & Rubs Station" in its stores' meat departments.

The in-store kiosk (pictured above) offers 24 varieties of free meat, poultry and seafood marinades and seasoning rubs - 12 marinades and 12 rubs. Customers simply take the meat, poultry and seafood items they've selected while shopping over to a clerk at the in-store station or kiosk, then choose from the 24 varieties which one(s) they would like on the various items. The clerk then marinates or "rubs" the meats for the shopper free of charge. [You can view a list of the 24 varieties here.] Raley's offers recipes featuring the various marinades and rubs at the kiosk and online at its website.

Limited vs full mass-customization

We call Fresh & Easy's value-added, pre-packaged grill pack approach "limited mass- customization." The concept of mass-customization applied to retail food and grocery merchandising essentially means attempting to add value to and customize products, such as fresh meats, to shoppers taste preferences in a general but yet somewhat specific way.

The pre-marinated and pre-seasoned grill packs offer one option per item-package to shoppers. For example, if a customer wants a Smokey-Garlic Tri-Trip rather than a Santa Maria Tri-Tip, it's not available. The same is the case if a shopper wants a Santa Maria Pork Loin rather than a Smokey-Garlic Pork Loin. Further, You can get a Lime & Cilantro or a Teriyaki Chicken Breast - but not a Santa Maria or a Smokey Garlic Chicken Breast. In other words, the pre-marinated and pre-seasoned grill packs are limited to the variety of marinade or seasoning Fresh & Easy decides to offer in them.

Conversely, we call the Raley's ready-to-grill fresh meat merchandising approach full mass- customization. It's mix & match. Rather than offering a selection of set, pre-packaged pre-marinated and seasoned meat, poultry and seafood items (the grill packs), the retailer instead offers a choice of 24 marinades and rubs in bulk form. Customers can choose whatever variety of marinade or seasoning rub out of the 24 options - or even choose multiple marinades and rubs on the same meat item if they like - they desire for their meat, poultry or seafood purchases.

The key difference with the Raley's approach is that it offers additional choice, hence the full mass-customization definition.

Using our above example, a shopper can get his or her Tri-Tip or Pork Loin pre-marinaded and ready-to-grill in a choice of 12 marinade varieties, as well as having a choice of 12 seasoning rubs. Of course, the choice is limited to the 24 total.

Raley's value-added fresh meat approach also offers a "high-touch" aspect in the form of a store associate who interacts with shoppers and prepares their meat items at the marinade and seasoning rub station in the meat department.

We aren't suggesting one grocery chains program is superior to the other. That's for shoppers to decide. In fact, each of the grocer's programs fits their respective formats: Fresh & Easy's pre-packaged approach fits with its emphasis on pre-packaging fresh foods category wide - produce, meats and prepared foods - in its stores.

Conversely, Raley's is a superstore operator and offers both pre-packaged and service types of merchandising in its stores, particularly in the fresh, prepared foods category. Raley's also puts more of a premium on service, that "high touch" element mentioned earlier, in its stores than does Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and Raley's don't yet compete.

Raley's stores are located in Northern California's Sacramento region, Northern Central Valley, San Francisco Bay Area and south coast. Fresh & Easy has yet to open any of its 37 confirmed store locations - 19 in the Sacramento-Vacaville area and 18 in the San Francisco Bay Area - in Northern California.

Competitors at present or not, Fresh & Easy and Raley's are taking very different merchandising approaches towards the same objective, which is to add value (the mass-customization approach) to the fresh meat, poultry and seafood products sold in their respective stores, along with tapping into the desire among a high percentage of shoppers for convenience, as a way to differentiate the chains and stores among shoppers and thereby grab more of a share of fresh meat category sales in each of their markets.

Let the "official" grilling season begin.

Strategy Session: Tesco Might Want to Get 'fresh & naked' at 'fresh & easy'

Fresh & Easy Buzz Strategy Session

Tesco is launching a new brand and line (called range in the UK) of unwashed, fresh salad greens in 350 of its stores in the United Kingdom (UK).

The brand's name is: "fresh & naked."

The "fresh & naked" brand is the creation of the UK's G's Marketing. The lettuce is grown by Shropshire's, a UK family farming operation that's been around since 1952, and is partnered with G's Marketing.

There are four "fresh & naked" salad green varieties (SKUs) - wild rocket, lambs lettuce, sweet mixed salad leaf and strong mixed salad leaf - at present.

The salad greens are packaged in attractive boxes, pictured at top, rather than in plastic bags. Fresh & Easy Buzz likes the look of the package. And because they're in boxes rather than the expected plastic bags, we think they will draw shopper attention in the produce case. The boxes are 100% recyclable, except for the cellophane window.

The fresh produce company and the retailer have signed an exclusive agreement for Tesco to sell the "fresh & naked" brand and line in 350 stores in the UK. The agreement runs until the end of summer 2010, according to G's Marketing, and can be renewed.

Not only is the "fresh & naked" name, which G's Marketing spells using all lower-case letters, a tad bit naughty and fun, it fits rather well with the name of Tesco's U.S. fresh foods and grocery chain - Fresh & Easy - which similarly is spelled in all lower case.

How about that?

Fresh & Easy Buzz suggests Tesco grab the license to the "fresh & naked" brand for the United States from G's marketing and launch a line of unwashed salad greens, and value-added salads - perhaps replacing its current "fresh & easy" brand or adding to it - in its 159 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market already has the local suppliers for the salad greens. All Tesco need do is obtain the rights to use "fresh & naked," including the packaging, for its Fresh & Easy fresh food and grocery chain in the U.S.

The "fresh & naked" brand name would also be good for some other selected fresh produce items. We also think there are some ready-to-eat fresh foods items that would be great under the "fresh & naked" brand name. How about fresh, packaged sushi, which Fresh & Easy sells, for example?

We think the "fresh & naked" brand name would particularly resonate well with the primary demographic, "Millennials-plus six" (Millennials are ages 18-29. We add six years, to age 35, for our Fresh & Easy cohort), that our research has found most likes the Fresh & Easy stores. But it also would likely have appeal to most other demographics; or at least not offend.

But even less scientifically speaking, Additionally, the "fresh & naked" name just fits well with "fresh & easy," from both semantic and marketing-merchandising standpoints.

An introductory (and perhaps ongoing) promotional tag-line for the salad greens and value added salads at Tesco's Fresh & Easy could be: "Get "fresh & naked" at "fresh & easy," followed by a description of the new line. Another one: "They're getting "fresh & naked" in the aisles at fresh & easy."

As you can see, in addition to "fresh & naked" fitting well with "fresh & easy," it has the potential to provide for some catchy marketing copy - and loads of merchandising fun. Humor in marketing and merchandising done well can translate to strong branding and sales.

Additionally, It wouldn't take a whole lot of work to garner a bunch of media buzz over the introduction of the "fresh & naked" salad line at "fresh & easy" either.

Private branding some of its fresh salad greens, ready-to-eat green salads and a few other appropriate items under the "fresh & naked" brand would also go towards a strategy we offered in a May 18, 2009 piece - Strategy Session: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Needs to Move From its One Store Brand Fits All Strategy to A 'Three Brand' Store Brand Strategy - in which we suggested Tesco's Fresh & Easy should adopt a multi-private brand strategy, rather than using its "fresh & easy" store brand across all product categories in the stores.

Since we've published the 2009 piece, Fresh & Easy has added some additional store brands, including "Mother's Joy," for a line of breakfast cereals in the dry grocery category and, most recently, "Eat-Well," for a new line of fresh, prepared entrees and side dishes, which it introduced in early April of this year.

In February-March 2009, Fresh & Easy introduced the "Buxted" brand, which it uses on a few SKUs of fresh meat: beef, pork and chicken items. "Buxted" is positioned as a value brand in the meat category, merchandised side-by-side with the grocer's "fresh & easy," brand for all other category items. [See - March 9, 2009: An English Village, A British Fresh Chicken Brand and Tesco Fresh & Easy's New 'Buxted' Discount Fresh Meat Brand: What Do All Three Have in Common?]

Since it appears our multi-brand advice was pretty spot on in 2009, perhaps it offers some utility regarding the grocer's adoption of "fresh & naked" as an additional private brand for selected use in the fresh produce category, and in a limited way for some ready-to-eat fresh foods like our sushi example? We think it does.

We still argue that Tesco's Fresh & Easy needs a different store brand for its natural and organic grocery items, rather than using the fresh & easy name on both conventional and natural-organic SKUs.

The Wild Oats brand is no longer available. It's in the process of being sold to one of two companies that have bid on it: Topco, a retailer-owned private brand cooperative, and a food manufacturing company in California. But Fresh & Easy could certainly create a natural-organic brand and use it for all of its items in the category, using 'fresh & easy" for just the conventional items.

As a start up, Tesco's Fresh & Easy needs to generate more excitement than it's currently doing, along with building the business. It needs to think outside of the 10,000 square-foot box more often as well.

We think "fresh & naked," as part of that multi-private brand strategy is one of many ways for the grocer to do so.

['Fresh & Easy Buzz Strategy Session' is a periodic feature in which we offer marketing, merchandising and other strategic concepts and ideas for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and other food retailers.]

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.

Walmart Launching New Value-Added Pre-Packaged Fresh Produce Line Under its Marketside Fresh Foods Brand

Fresh Foods Merchandising: Value-Added Produce Category

Walmart Stores, Inc. is introducing an extensive new line of value-added fresh, bagged and pre-packaged produce items under its Marketside fresh foods brand, Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned.

Thus far, the line includes 17 SKUs in the following categories: Fresh, bagged or pre-packaged spinach greens, salad mixes and lettuce, value-added fresh veggies, and a fresh salsa item.

All of the value-added fresh produce items come in either clear bags or plastic packages/tubs. Below are the 17 new Marketside value-added fresh produce items, detailed under the four categories we've created and grouped them under:

Spinach Greens

>Marketside Fresh Spinach, 10 oz
>Marketside Organic Baby Spinach, 10 oz
>Marketside Organic Baby Spinach, 5 oz

Microwave In-Bag Value-Added Veggies

>Marketside Broccoli Cauliflower, 12 oz
>Marketside Broccoli Florets, 12 oz
>Marketside Broccoli/Cauliflower/Carrots Vegetable Medley, 12 oz
>Marketside Snow Peas, 8 oz
>Marketside Sugar Snap Peas, 8 oz

Salad Mix, Salads & Lettuce

>Marketside Classic Iceberg Salad, 12 oz
>Marketside Classic Iceberg Salad, 24 oz
>Marketside Classic Iceberg Salad, 6 oz

>Marketside Shredded Iceberg Lettuce, 8 oz

>Marketside Broccoli Slaw, 12 oz

>Marketside Organic Herb Mix, 5 oz

>Marketside Organic Spring Mix, 10 oz
>Marketside Organic Spring Mix, 5 oz

Fresh Salsa Mix

>Marketside Mild Pico De Gallo, 10 oz

Five of the 17 bagged and pre-packaged fresh produce items are organic, as you can see in the above list.

Walmart is launching its new Marketside value-added, bagged and packaged fresh produce items in selected Supercenters and Neighborhood Market supermarkets.
Some of the 17 items have been sold at Walmart's four small-format 'marketside by Walmart' fresh food and grocery stores in Metropolitan Phoenix. Those stores opened in May 2008.

Earlier today we reported on and detailed that Walmart is introducing a new line of pre-packaged, ready-to-heat fresh, prepared entrees and soups under its Marketside store brand. [February 28, 2010 Walmart Introducing New Ready-To-Heat Prepared Entrees, Fresh Soups Under its Marketside Brand] The two new lines follow Walmart's introduction last year of its Marketside take-and-bake pizza line.

The extension of store brand Marketside to the new pre-packaged, value-added fresh produce line shows Walmart plans to use Marketside as a complete fresh foods store brand, including fresh produce - and other types of fresh foods - under the brand, along with the fresh, prepared foods line.

Interestingly, the new Marketside value-added fresh produce line includes not only the upscale, specialty items like the fancy and organic greens, but also more basic items like the iceberg lettuce and fresh vegetables.

For those who haven't thought Walmart isn't planning to exploit "Fresh," this new development, along with the Marketside fresh, prepared foods line extension, should offer a change of mind.

Additionally, Walmart will be rolling out additional fresh foods items under its Marketside store brand. Stay tuned.