As the battle for grocery dollars continues to heat up, retailers increasingly rely on popular brands to bring in shoppers and drive sales.
In recent months, Target has been experimenting with this strategy, adding brands such as The Wild Alaskan Company and Pure Genius Protein to its lineup in hopes that the viral products will convince shoppers to do at least part of their weekly grocery haul in its stores.
Now, it’s adding another trendy brand to its grocery department. This time it’s focusing on providing customers with prepared meal options, a category competitors Kroger and Publix have already embraced.
Target expands Factor partnership
In late September, Target confirmed that it would expand its partnership with Factor nationwide.
Factor, which describes itself as the world’s leading ready-made meal delivery service, will now be available in more than 800 Target locations across 47 states. The expansion comes just nine months after Factor’s initial partnership with Target, which saw it placed in 70 stores across the Midwest.
During that initial pilot, Factor says that it saw consumer demand far exceed initial expectations, launching it into a top position within the prepared meal category.
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“The response reinforced our belief that Factor can play an even bigger role in how people solve for everyday meals,” Factor CEO Adam Park said in a statement cited by Perishable News. “Expanding nationally with Target allows us to meet consumers in more moments, while delivering the same quality, taste, and convenience they expect from Factor.”
For Target, the expansion fits perfectly with its ambitions to, as CMO Cara Sylvester put it on a recent earnings call, “make food a destination, not simply a category a guest shop while they’re in our stores, but a reason they choose to come to Target.”
In addition to a wider rollout, the prepared meal company is also expanding its retail lineup. Shoppers can now choose from five fan favorites: Roasted Garlic Chicken, Smoky Gouda Chicken, Shredded Chicken Taco Bowl, Thai-Style Green Chicken Curry, and Butternut Squash & Sage Chicken Macaroni.
Target is expanding its partnership with Factor, rolling out the brand’s prepared meals to 800 stores nationwide.Bloomberg / Getty Images
Prepared meals are becoming a grocery battleground
With its expansion of Factor meals, Target is jumping on a trend many grocery chains have already experimented with: prepared foods.
While grocery stores carrying ready-made meals is nothing new, the category has seen significant growth over the last several years, especially among younger cohorts.
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Major grocery chains, including Publix and Kroger, have invested heavily in their prepared food offerings, from adding more ready-to-eat meals and deli offerings to expanding their grab-and-go selections.
“The frequency of purchase of prepared foods rose 9% year-over-year from August 2024 to August 2025, suggesting consumers are increasingly turning to grocers for meal solutions,” according to McKinsey’s 2026 The State of Grocery report.
Some 61% of shoppers say they buy ready-to-eat foods at least once a month, according to the report, and shoppers ages 18 to 29 are largely driving the trend.
For retailers, then, the stakes are high. With that many consumers actively seeking out ready-made and prepared meals, there’s a significant portion of spend waiting to be captured.
For the grocers who get the offerings right, prepared foods offer another opportunity to create long-term relationships with consumers and increase overall basket size.
A stunning 94% of grocers told McKinsey that fresh and prepared foods play a significant role in driving customer loyalty. Additionally, 35% of consumers report switching stores due to dissatisfaction with the quality of fresh foods, and 42% say they are more likely to buy additional packaged items when purchasing fresh or prepared foods.
Factor’s expansion, then, gives Target another way to compete for the meals consumers are already looking to buy from grocery stores.
And if prepared foods can drive both loyalty and additional purchases, the partnership could also give Target something even more valuable: another reason for shoppers to make it part of their regular grocery routine.
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