Wal-Mart relaunched Marketside.com to better showcase its new private label line of prepared meals, produce and bakery items with a tool that walks customers through a vibrantly colored European-style marketplace.March 9, 2010
Wal-Mart relaunched Marketside.com to better showcase its new private label line of prepared meals, produce and bakery items with a tool that walks customers through a vibrantly colored European-style marketplace.
“Fresh, delicious foods shouldn’t be expensive,” the web site proclaims. “Fresh ideas and honest ingredients. Explore our shops … to see how Marketside brings the best quality fresh foods to your table every day.”
The “shops” include a produce section, a deli and a bakery, which is still under construction. The produce section offers salads, vegetables sourced from local farms where possible, according to the web site. “Since it's only from Walmart, you know it will be at the lowest price possible.”
The deli and prepared food section includes 12 varieties of soups made with no artificial flavors or colors, or preservatives, 13 take n’ bake pizza varieties and six chef-inspired family meals “for a restaurant quality experience.” The web site, however, does not yet detail all the flavor and variety options.
Originally, Marketside was the name of Wal-Mart’s six freestanding stores in Arizona that the retailer developed in response to Tesco’s Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores proliferating on the West Coast. After less than a year in test market Wal-Mart closed the stores last year, but decided to keep the Marketside label for its new prepared food and produce lines available in Wal-Mart stores. Meanwhile, Tesco continues with its Fresh & Easy development and now has approximately 150 stores in California, Arizona and Nevada.
Wal-Mart first used the Marketside brand on its premium pizzas and has now extended the brand to soups, ready-to-heat meals and produce items such as spinach, beans, peas, organic salad and fresh salsa.