Target Takes Ten Brands for Accelerator Cohort

Retail giant Target Corp.’s Target Accelerators program announced its third Takeoff Food and Beverage class, intended to prepare 10 emerging food and beverage brands for success on mass-retail shelves.

Founded in 2017 (the food and beverage specific cohort was founded in 2021), Takeoff is one of the two Target Accelerators programs which coaches a cohort of entrepreneurs on ways to successfully improve branding and marketing strategies while also exposing them to a network of other founders and Target team members.

The virtual six week program runs from mid-October through December 1 and is geared towards “mature” brands who have proven successful in smaller retail markets and are ready to build for mass scale. Each company is given a $5,000 stipend and can send two team members per company (one must be the founder) to the four-hour sessions Monday through Friday. The program culminates in a Pitch Event where brands present their growth strategy.

Takeoff separates CPG businesses into five cohorts: Baby and Toddler, Food and Beverage, Health and Personal Care, Household Essentials, and Pets.

The other Accelerator program, Future Founders, is “designed to help historically under-resourced founders” who typically have less experience in retail. . Future Founders is a larger program that offers 30 companies in each seven-category cohort (Beauty and Toys and Entertainment are added to the Takeoff list) a 10-week program that focuses more on building a successful brand.

Target describes its Accelerator programs as “getting your MBA in retail” with curriculums built to provide entrepreneurs with help in merchandising, digital marketing strategy, packaging and optimizing supply chain management so brands can scale efficiently. The programs do this through coursework as well as mentorship from Target’s network of CPG industry thought leaders, consumer brand executives and Target’s Founders in Residence.

Partake Foods founder and CEO Denise Woodard and Bagelista co-founder Warren Wilson, who graduated from the Takeoff program in 2021, are this year’s Food and Beverage Founders in Residence

The 2023 Takeoff cohort is an even split of five food and five beverage brands:

• Vallejo, California-based Better Chew is the plant-based consumer brand of Black-owned, alternative meat manufacturing company Something Better Foods.
• Raw, vegan brand glonuts makes keto-friendly mini donuts in Los Angeles, California.
• Another Los Angeles-based brand, Honeycut Kitchen, produces low-sugar, high-protein snack cakes.
• Homiah, based in New York City, creates authentic Southeast Asian ready-to-eat sauces and condiments.
• Brooklyn-based bar maker Resist Nutrition makes plant-based snacks that are clinically proven to slow blood sugar responses.
• Brooklyn’s Tea is a sustainability-focused tea brand from New York that “connects people through the art and ritual of tea.”
• Mushroom tea company Immorel makes functional beverages in Brooklyn, New York.
• Bumpin Blends is a Los Angeles-based frozen smoothie brand designed by a dietitian to support healthy nutrition.
• Washington D.C. founded Mocktail Club produces zero-proof RTD cocktails in four flavors.
• Soldadera, the sole brand not from a coastal city, makes canned nitro cold brew coffee and tea with Mexican flavors in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Past Takeoff alumni include beverage brands Asian-inspired sparkling water maker Sanzo, aguas frescas brand Agua Bonita and gut-friendly wildwonder. Former food brands that have gone through the accelerator include snack maker KPOP Foods, fish jerky brand Pescavore and Mexican food business Somos Foods.