Target leans into protein and wellness as food growth drivers

Protein is now part of Target’s growth engine

Target’s latest quarter makes a blunt case for where food is headed: protein, wellness and better-for-you snacking are no longer side bets, they are part of the retailer’s core grocery growth story. The company said it will keep leaning into high-growth food and beverage areas through its Food Forward strategy, and that framing matters. This is not Target parking protein in a niche wellness bay and hoping for the best. It is folding protein into the same playbook that now treats food as a reason shoppers choose Target in the first place.

The sales backdrop gives that strategy real weight. Target reported first-quarter 2026 net sales of $25.4 billion, up 6.7% from a year earlier, with comparable sales up 5.6% and comparable traffic up 4.4%. Digital comparable sales rose 8.9%, same-day delivery through Target Circle 360 jumped more than 27%, and non-merchandise sales grew nearly 25%. In other words, the retailer is getting more people into the basket, more people into the app and more people into the store, while food is doing more of the heavy lifting.

The food aisle is becoming a destination, not just a fill-in

Target said food and beverage now accounts for 25% of its sales, and first-quarter Food & Beverage sales climbed to $6.3 billion from $5.9 billion a year earlier. That is the clearest signal in the entire update. Food is big enough now to matter on its own, and protein has a direct line into that growth because it sits at the intersection of convenience, health and repeat purchase.

Cara Sylvester, Target’s chief merchandising officer, put a sharper point on it by saying the retailer introduced 3,000 new food items in the first quarter and saw sales from those items grow more than 50% versus the prior assortment. That is the kind of number merchants pay attention to. It says Target’s shoppers are responding to newness, and that high-protein and better-for-you products are not just getting shelf space, they are earning velocity.

The practical takeaway for brands is simple: protein has to do more than carry a macro claim. It needs to fit a basket-building strategy. If the product can help Target sell freshness, discovery and wellness in one trip, it is more likely to win placement and stay there.

A merchandising reset tells you where the retailer is placing its bets

Target is not just adding products and hoping the assortment sorts itself out. The company said it is resetting nearly half of its center store grocery assortment and accelerating its pace of newness by nearly 50%. That is a big move for a big-box retailer, and it tells you how seriously Target is taking better-for-you foods as a growth lever.

For protein brands, that matters in a very specific way. Center store resets are where the retailer decides what kind of grocery experience it wants to deliver, and a faster newness cadence usually means tighter editing, stronger trend filtering and less patience for undifferentiated SKUs. Protein products that look and taste premium, solve a real use case or map cleanly into breakfast, snacking or meal-building are the ones most likely to survive that churn.

This also changes the merchandising conversation. Protein is no longer just a standalone nutrition story. At Target, it now sits beside functional drinks, better-for-you snacking and the broader wellness basket. That creates more opportunities for cross-merchandising, endcaps and in-store journeys that connect meal occasions instead of isolating a single macro.

Target’s wellness reset shows how protein is being packaged for mass retail

Target signaled this direction even earlier, on January 7, 2026, when it said its wellness assortment would expand by 30% and explicitly called out “more protein, more ways.” That phrase is doing a lot of work. It points to variety, usage occasions and the idea that protein has to show up in forms people will actually buy repeatedly, not just in the powder aisle.

The early assortment included ButcherBox’s exclusive retail debut of 100% grass-fed beef options, plus on-the-go protein snacks and powders from Misfits, David, Bloom and FlavCity. That mix says plenty about where Target thinks demand is headed. There is room for refrigerated meat, portable snacks and drinkable or mixable protein, but only if each item feels easy to shop and easy to understand.

Target also said it was eliminating all certified synthetic colors from its cereal assortment. That detail may sound separate from protein, but it is part of the same clean-label and health-positioning reset. When a retailer removes synthetic colors from a major breakfast category while expanding protein and wellness, it is telling shoppers that “better for you” is not a single shelf. It is a storewide posture.

The broader turnaround plan is giving the food push room to breathe

Target’s protein and wellness strategy is happening inside a much bigger company reset. On March 3, 2026, the retailer announced an incremental $2 billion in investments for the year, including more than $1 billion in capital expenditures and more than $1 billion in operating investments. The company said those dollars would help refresh stores, strengthen assortment and accelerate technology, and it promised more changes within stores than in any year of the last decade.

That matters because food growth is easier to win when the store, the supply chain and the digital stack all support it. A tighter grocery reset, faster newness and better same-day delivery all reinforce the same behavior: shop Target more often, and shop it for more than discretionary add-ons. Protein fits that model well because it travels across in-store and digital, works in stock-up and fill-in trips, and can be merchandised against wellness, convenience and meal planning.

Target is also expanding its physical footprint. The company opened seven new stores in the first quarter of 2026, bringing its total to 2,002, and it plans to open more than 30 locations this year. That gives the food strategy more surfaces to work with, especially in markets where Target wants to be seen as a fuller grocery destination, not just a general merchandise stop with a cooler case.

What brands should read between the lines

The cleanest read from Target’s comments is that protein has crossed into the mainstream grocery conversation. It is no longer being treated as a niche wellness claim that lives on the edge of the shelf. It is being threaded into a broader story about health, discovery, freshness and convenience, the exact mix that wins at big-box scale.

For brands, that raises the bar in a useful way. The products most likely to matter now are the ones that can earn repeat purchase inside a changing grocery set, work across multiple shopping missions and look good in a retailer’s wellness story without feeling overly specialized. Target’s numbers suggest there is still room for protein-forward items, but only if they help the retailer do something bigger than sell protein. They have to help Target sell the future of food.