Hey, you! I recently started a blog reviewing affordable products to buy at Target and thought it might be useful to give a quick overview and comparison of Target’s two major grocery brands, Market Pantry and Archer Farms.
The Market Pantry is officially described by Target as follows:
Great brand taste. But its price is much lower. You get the same quality, but for a lot less than you’d pay for the national brands.
Much redundant? Many, many, many. Their product descriptions are great, too: Did you see my review of Toasted Oats Cereal from the Market Pantry? I’m not really critical – I mean, it’s good information – but I still find it a decent source of entertainment.
Expect to find Market Pantry products located right next to the brand product you’re copying from, very likely with Compare & Save! Signs point directly to them. A very classic example of a low price strategy.
In terms of quality.. it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There have been cases where I actually preferred Market Pantry products over the brand-name alternative, and there were situations where I physically couldn’t choke it down.
It is very difficult to find reviews of some of these products online. Hence my new blog. We hope people find it useful. But I digress. =)
Now we will investigate the description of the target for shooters farms:
Our top quality is made with the finest ingredients. We promise you’ll love every little bit, bite, and sip. 100% satisfaction guarantee.
As you can see, there is little difference in how they are marketed – and rightly so. Market Pantry is pretty much equivalent to the lower-priced generic brands you’d find at any grocery store, while Archer Farms is much more expensive.
This may sound a little strange, but I’ve had really great experiences with Archer Farms products in general. A large percentage of it is organic, and the packaging and taste are exceptional. Some of them contribute to charity, too — if that’s the case, the packaging will usually indicate that.
There’s also a bit more personality to the Archer Farms brand: It’s quite clear that they’ve chosen to differentiate their products in terms of high-quality ingredients and interesting flavors rather than implementing the low-price strategy that Market Pantry emphasizes to a somewhat disturbing degree.
Unfortunately, with excellent quality comes premium pricing. Expect to pay as much, if not more, as you would for a national brand. Deserves all the effort? It’s up to you.
Other store brands:
There are a few other brands that are also exclusive to Target. I’ll sum it up briefly for you: Choxie offers upscale chocolate, Sutton & Dodge offers Angus beef, and Wine Cube offers..well…cubes of wine? I haven’t actually seen the wine cubes mentioned, but according to Target’s website, they’re beautiful colors, award winning, and available in three sizes.
minimum:
Market Pantry offers cheaper alternatives to brand name products. The good ones are great and the lemons are inedible. Never fear.. I’m here to provide guidance!;)
Archer Farms offers expensive alternatives to national brand products. They are always of the highest quality, and many of the products are organic too!