This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah shoppers got their first glimpse this week of Target's latest store format dubbed P Fresh at the company's new location near downtown Salt Lake City.
The store, at 1110 S. 300 West, is the first of its kind in the state. P Fresh, or Prototype Fresh, stores are similar in look to SuperTarget stores in that they carry groceries and general merchandise.
But the P Fresh stores carry a narrower selection of heavily purchased food items. The stores, for example, do not have the traditional bakery and deli departments that a SuperTarget store has, instead focusing on prepackaged baked goods, meats and cheeses, according to Emily Petela, a manager at the store.
"The focus is on the best-selling grocery items," she said. While the variety of food products carried by a P Fresh store is similar to a traditional grocery store — the stores feature 90 percent of the food categories found in a typical SuperTarget — there are fewer choices of brands and styles.
"That means that we may not have six to eight different kinds of frozen pizza, but we're still going to have two or three different kinds," Petela said.
The idea, similar to one pioneered by Walmart, is to carry only the items that sell reliably and in high volume.
Jodi Miller, who blogs at myslcmommy.com, visited the new store Thursday. She noticed the limited bakery and deli areas, but said overall the store was similar to the SuperTarget stores she's visited.
She was especially pleased with all the grand-opening deals specific to that store, such as bananas for 10 cents each and eggs for 25 cents per dozen.
Minneapolis-based Target began rolling out the new store format two years ago and has begun moving in that direction ever since. The company has about 350 P Fresh operations now out of more than 1,700 stores nationwide.
To increase the number of P Fresh stores, Target is now converting many of its traditional Target stores that carry no groceries to the new format. It's also constructing new P Fresh stores, like the one in Salt Lake City, instead of the larger SuperTarget stores that were popular in the pre-recession days of the early-to-mid-2000s. Utah has more than a dozen SuperTarget stores along the Wasatch Front.
Analysts say Target's shift to P Fresh stores, however, is no slam dunk.
Leon Nicholas, director of retail insights for Masachusetts-based Kantar Retail, told trade publication Supermarket News that only time will tell whether the trend toward P Fresh stores ultimately will benefit Target, especially in cases in which the company converts stores that used to carry no grocery items at all. Nicholas noted that the grocery business is fairly low-margin, so it's unclear whether adding food to a Target store — at the expense of nonfood items — will increase that store's profitability.
Stock research service Morningstar says the move to the new store format likely will broaden the appeal of Target stores that in the past carried no grocery items. But it does little to help Target differentiate itself from other discount retailers.
"With the addition of perishable items and 90 percent of the food categories found in a SuperTarget, we think Target's general stores will start to serve as a fill-in trip to the grocery store for consumers," a recent report said. "Although this effort is timely, given consumers' focus on everyday goods, it doesn't differentiate Target from its peers and brings it into closer competition with price leader Walmart."
New Target store
Target's P Fresh store has opened at 1110 S. 300 West in Salt Lake City. The official grand opening is Sunday.