Walmart Doubles Down On Private Label With Premium, Accessible bettergoods Debut

The country’s largest grocery retailer is setting up to capitalize on consumers’ growing affinity for private label offerings amid continued, heightened food prices.

Walmart debuted its new store brand, bettergoods, today with over 300 unique products spanning frozen, dairy, snacks, beverages, pasta, soups, coffee, chocolate and more. The mass retailer claims this is its largest private label food brand launch in nearly two decades and the fastest it has brought a new brand to market.

“Today’s customers expect more from the private brands they purchase – they want affordable, quality products to elevate their overall food experience,” said Scott Morris, SVP of private brands, food and consumables at Walmart, in a press release. “Bettergoods is more than just a new private brand. It’s a commitment to our customers that they can enjoy unique culinary flavors at the incredible value Walmart delivers.”

While store brands are historically better value alternatives to brand name products, Walmart is aiming to align lower prices with demand for the premium, upscale items. According to Walmart, bettergoods will sit on-shelf for between $2 to $15; the vast majority of offerings will be available for around $5.

Additionally, Walmart claims that unlike most private offerings, which are often modeled after popular name brand foods, many bettergoods items are unique to Walmart and created by its in-house product development team, in collaboration with global suppliers. Bettergoods products are housed under three broad categories – Culinary Experiences, Plant-based and “Made Without” – and include everything from hot honey seasoning to a four ingredient, Sweet Cream Dairy Creamer.

According to Kelly Criswell, founder and principal of strategic creative and brand design agency Mudge, the overall look for this expansive range does “a fine job at feeling like a modern private label brand.” She said her initial reaction was that “Walmart made a more approachable version of Target’s Good & Gather.”

The line has also drawn similarities to Trader Joe’s “dupe culture” approach to private label products due to the flavor variety, like frozen chicken wings with a Brown Sugar BBQ dry rub. On the product-specific design front, she noted that the culinary experience items could have been made more distinct with less generic food photography, stating the “designs are expected, and not differentiated.”

“It’s a real challenge when designing a system for a portfolio so big across so many different categories,” Criswell said. “Their choice of using color to delineate categories (plant based, etc) is a good one, but… it may be harder for the consumer to quickly differentiate flavor from SKU to SKU… It’s such a broad design system that they likely made some concessions and sacrificed the shopability of some categories for consistency across the lines.”

Either way, the unified product range, and speed to which it was brought to market, signals that Walmart sees a significant opportunity to grow with a broad ranging private label food platform while competing with Target’s Good & Gather brand, among others.

Earlier this month during a webinar with Jefferies analysts, Jeff Wojtkowiak, president of In The Loop Consulting and a former Kroger executive, explained that private label business will likely be key revenue growth drivers for retailers moving forward.

Not only that, he emphasized that these offerings will serve as an opportunity to bring more consumers into stores, specifically for mass retailers like Walmart and Target, while highlighting that the differentiated private label approaches from discounters like Trader Joe’s and Aldi will serve as a guide.