Kroger partners with Impossible Foods for Home Chef items

During its 2022 Business Update Event last week, Kroger announced a major partnership for one of its private label brands. Kroger, Custom Made Meals and plant-based meat heavyweight Impossible Foods will create new products for Kroger’s Home Chef brand.

“We are incredibly proud of our Home Chef brand, which became a $1 billion brand in 2021,” said chief merchandising and marketing officer for Kroger Stuart W. Aitken. “We’ll continue to expand this brand across our family of companies. Our assortment is connecting with the customer through ready-to-eat meals, rotating seasonal programs, new appetizers as well as our first plant-based protein, in partnership with Custom Made Meals and Impossible.”

The announcement, originally covered by The Beet, is yet another move by America’s largest grocer to bolster its plant-based private brand selection. Juan De Paoli, VP of own brands at Kroger, spoke about the company’s private label strategy regarding plant-based items in the latest issue of Store Brands Magazine.

“Future growth in plant-based categories will largely come from flexitarians, not vegans,” said De Paoli. “This means plant-based foods need to be as good or better than their animal-based counterparts, in taste, nutrition and functionality.”

The partnership with Impossible Foods and Custom Made Meals show continued growth for Home Chef, which was acquired by Kroger in 2018. The brand, which specializes in meal kits and ready-to-eat items, has partnered with USAA for special deals and with Skinnytaste for new recipes.

“If you look at the merger with Home Chef, it would be an example of where we really tried to find the company that had capabilities that we didn’t, but you can leverage the assets they have within the Kroger infrastructure plus help them accelerate their growth,” said chairman and CEO of Kroger Rodney McMullen. “And those are the types of things that we’re looking at because it really does create a win-win-win."