Seaweed Mining and a New Premium Walmart Brand
Some notes & quotes from recent reads:
Walmart Takes On Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods With New Premium Brand
Quotes:
Walmart wants to expand its food empire. It thinks gluten-free muffin mix and oat milk ice cream hold the key.
Already the country’s largest grocer, the company is introducing a line of premium food called Bettergoods this year, aiming to attract new, often higher income shoppers more frequently and to encourage current shoppers to spend more.
The new brand took years to develop and will include foods such as cardamom rose raspberry jam for $5.24 and curry chicken empanadas. Walmart plans to add more than 300 Bettergoods items to shelves this year—many of which will cost $5 or less.
It is a big strategic bet for the retailer as it competes for customers with Costco Wholesale, Trader Joe’s and Amazon.com’s Whole Foods, which also have extensive store brands. It is likely to rankle food manufacturers already fighting for space on Walmart’s shelves. And it is part of Walmart’s efforts to keep bringing people to its stores even when they aren’t on the hunt for inexpensive necessities.
Notes:
We’ll see if they stick the landing on this, but this would seem to be a smart move by Walmart, especially at a moment in which more people (including those with higher incomes) are budget-shopping at places like Aldi, where they can get pretty high-quality stuff for lower prices than at their typical, higher-end and specialty shops.
It’s also heartening to see them expand into alternative proteins and milks and flours and such, as when a company this big starts investing in those spaces, they tend to grow a lot faster.
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