Dive Brief:
- DTC food brand Daily Harvest has continued its recent march into retail stores by launching at select Target locations nationwide, per a news release.
- The brand has 16 SKUs available on Target’s website and in 250 Target stores across California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington, Virginia and Washington, D.C., per the company.
- The launch at Target follows the brand’s recent foray into brick-and-mortar retailers, including Costco, Wegmans and New Seasons Market, as well as through online marketplace Good Eggs in San Francisco.
Dive Insight:
Launched in 2015 by Rachel Drori, Daily Harvest has grown from smoothies to now offering over 100 items available online via its website and 30 items across five collections — Smoothies, Pops, Harvest Bowls, Pasta and Grains — that are available to its retail partners.
"We're thrilled to partner with Target to bring an assortment of delicious, quick-to-prep Daily Harvest food to their guests across the country,” Annie Streit, chief commercial officer at Daily Harvest, said in a statement. “Target is a crucial discovery retailer for us as we broaden our reach from online DTC to freezer aisles coast-to-coast."
Streit and Drori have both said that wholesale was the next logical step for the almost 10-year-old company. Similar to many DTC brands, expanding to retail outlets allows the company to meet customers where they shop. Daily Harvest last year launched its first wholesale partnership with 1,000 Kroger Family of Companies stores, including Kroger, Dillons, Fry's, Fred Meyer, QFC, Ralphs, Smith's and Harris Teeter.
“Launching in retail allows us to unlock a much larger market opportunity and drive trial among consumers who may want to buy and try our food a la carte,” Streit said in an email. “We are also entering retail at a time when more consumers than ever are seeking food made with high quality and functional ingredients and products that have certain certifications and/or align with specific diets.”
Daily Harvest has had its share of challenges in the past few years, most notably a substantial voluntary product recall in 2022. The result was a class action lawsuit against the brand for using tara flour in its French Lentil + Leek Crumble.
Daily Harvest Inc. and Second Bite Foods Inc, one of its manufacturers, have agreed to settle the class action consumer lawsuit for around $23 million, according to a Bloomberg Law report last week.
“A settlement agreement has been filed with the court to approve the settlement of all filed lawsuits related to the recall. We are pleased this matter is being resolved,” a Daily Harvest spokesperson told Retail Dive in an email.
