Target Seek to Grow Food Sales With Expanded Tabitha Brown Partnership

Target is targeting vegan consumers with its ongoing partnership with actor-author Tabitha Brown.

Beginning Sunday (Jan. 8), shoppers can purchase a line of vegan food products, tableware, cookware and kitchen decor curated by Brown, Target said in a news release.

The launch, dominated by products that sell for under $10, marks the third expansion of Target’s partnership with Brown since its launch last year. It comes in the wake of a holiday season that found the retailer dealing with what its CEO called “price-sensitive” consumers.

Last week, Wells Fargo analyst Edward Kelly said Target was “no longer an attractive investment,” citing a range of ongoing headwinds and challenges.

“Our concerns include the potential for a sustained period of comp weakness in general merchandise, an inflection to negative traffic in Q4, a lack of visibility on the timing/magnitude of the margin recovery story, and the return of pre-COVID model scalability concerns,” Kelly said.

Target warned investors in November that its critical holiday season would likely not meet expectations, in spite of historic levels of promotions aimed at reducing its inventory.

“Many consumers this year have relied on borrowing or dipping into their savings to manage their weekly budgets but for many consumers, those options are starting to run out,” CEO Brian Cornell said during a conference call.

Meanwhile, price sensitivity hasn’t kept consumers away from buying groceries, as recent research by PYMNTS has found.

“New Reality Check: The Paycheck-To-Paycheck Report: 2022 Year In Review Edition,” created in collaboration with LendingClub, found that grocery purchases were resilient.

Groceries are something virtually everyone surveyed purchased in the 30 months prior to the study: 93% paycheck to paycheck consumers who have issues paying bills, 90% of those who do so without issues paying bills, and 85% of those who do not live paycheck to paycheck.

“Presumably, the lower share of the latter suggests that many of these consumers continue to rely on dining out, while consumers with less of a financial safety net continue to rely on grocers,” PYMNTS wrote recently.

These shares are higher than the portion of consumers who purchased any other kind of product, including other necessities such as fuel for a car. As prices skyrocket, grocers have the benefit of offering products that are indispensable. Whether that will benefit Target and Tabitha Brown remains to be seen.