Leslie Patton and Jaewon Kang of Bloomberg tell their readers that customers are either paying up for higher-end items from upstarts or trading down to cheaper “private label” ones. They write:
A burst of color is washing over Kraft’s once dominant royal blue in the macaroni and cheese aisle.
Among new arrivals is Goodles, a protein-packed option with eye-catching neon branding that costs more than twice as much as a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. At a Target in Chicago, Goodles’ Shella Good and Bling Bling Bac’n varieties are picked over; larger boxes with squeezy cheese sauce are completely sold out. Adjacent to the Kraft packages are two rows of Target’s low-cost Market Pantry brand: At 65 cents a pack, the red boxes cost about a third of the price as the Kraft perched just a few inches away.
Mid-priced items like Kraft are increasingly losing shelf space and customers to premium and low-cost products. Sales of Kraft Heinz Co.’s roughly billion-dollar brand slumped 6% in the year through July 13, according to NIQ data viewed by Bloomberg. […]
Collins, a fitness coach, says she’s willing to pay an extra $2 to $3 a box because it packs protein. “Anything you’re spending to better your health is just an investment,” she said. […]
For Collins, the fitness coach in Idaho, Kraft would need to do a major makeover to out-nutrition Goodles and get her to consider buying them over her favorite flavor, Hey Hey Elote.
“I have tried other brands and I honestly think the taste difference isn’t that huge,” she said. And as for Goodles? “The nutrition is so much better.”
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