San Diego Target Stores Offering More to Consumers

Target customers in the San Diego area can now satisfy their hunger while they satisfy their inner shopaholic—the successful retail chain known for offering high-end products for low-brow prices is now debuting an expanded line of groceries, including a wider selection of produce, meat, and dairy.

While the move won’t put Target on the map as a competitor to the major grocery chains out there, it does further the company’s long-time goal of providing convenient one-stop shopping for its customers. Jennifer Mooney, a Target spokeswoman from the chain’s Minnesota headquarters, told the Union-Tribune: “Our guests want to go into a store and get fresh food along with toilet paper and video games. They can now do it all in one trip.”

Customers agree that the new products are convenient, although Target is not their typical grocery stop: a Lemon Grove resident interviewed by the Union-Tribune had this to say on the subject: “This is OK for picking up a few things that I need since I’m here anyway (buying diapers and shampoo). But I’ll still go to the grocery store each week because they just have more of what I want and use.”

Eleven Targets in the San Diego County area currently offer an expanded grocery department, with four more coming in the next two months. Across the country, 350 Targets will offer groceries by the end of the year—with the possibility of more doing the same in the future.

David Livingston of DJL Research, a supermarket research company in Milwaukee, emphasized Target’s reasons for the expansion: “Adding groceries to Target hasn’t had a big impact on the grocery market at all. But, that’s not important to Target. They just wanted to increase foot traffic,” he told the Union Tribune.

Currently, stores with expanded grocery departments are offering basic fruits such as apples, grapes, nectarines, and bananas, meats such as ground beef, chicken breasts, and sausage, and basic packaged goods such as cereals and granola bars.

Photo from Chris-Gonzales90 via flickr