Brands Briefing: The wellness wars heat up among retail chains

In many cases, these products encompass supplements, capsules and powders, but some retailers are also bringing in fitness trackers like the Oura ring. According to analysts and industry experts, retailers are strengthening their health and wellness assortments in anticipation of increased demand. While it has created more opportunities for wellness brands to show up on shelves, it can be a challenging category to remain momentum in as consumers struggle to navigate a sea of new brands. In turn, wellness brands are hoping that entering mass retail will allow them to prove their mainstream appeal.

According to McKinsey & Company, in the U.S. alone, the consumer wellness category represents over $500 billion in annual spend. This global market hit $2 trillion in the first half of 2025 despite microeconomic volatility.

This growth is evident in the fresh wave of wellness brand that have launched just this month in mass retail. Some of Target’s recent new merchandise items include exclusive SKUs from Ka’Chava, Poppi and Bloom Nutrition. In recent weeks, the Bobby Parrish-founded functional products brand FlavCity entered Target with an exclusive strawberry shortcake flavor of its protein smoothies. And Plant People, which makes zero-sugar plant-based gummy supplements, is launching nationwide at Target this week. Over at Costco, Levels Protein is rolling out in 51 locations at a new, lower price. 

Katie Thomas leads the Kearney Consumer Institute, an internal think tank at global management consulting firm Kearney. Thomas agreed that these launches are part of Target’s and its competitors’ efforts to bring wellness and better-for-you brands to the masses. 

“The wellness space is full and competitive, and we often over-estimate how many consumers are actively seeking out better-for-you products,” Thomas said.

Thomas pointed to recent Kearney Consumer Institute research showing that 50% of consumers struggle to prioritize their health due to structural constraints. “This often means they are not even looking at these products or reading the claims,” Thomas said. Those interested in health have many options to choose from and typically conduct their own research to identify the right product mix for their individual wellness goals. “It will remain a challenging category for awareness and breakthrough,” Thomas said.

Anarghya Vardhana, a general partner at consumer health investment firm Maveron, said the abundance of wellness choices is creating “wellness fatigue.” And it is coming from many different angles. “It’s not just the wellness supplements, it’s also things like protein and fiber,” Vardhana said.

In other words, there’s a lot of confusion among customers who simply want to find a product that improves their health.

At the same time, DTC-first brands are finding they need to cross over to mass retail to continue to scale, considering the limitations of e-commerce due to digital marketing costs. “You see many examples, like Grüns and David Protein being on Amazon,” Vardhana said. However, she continued, “Being on retail shelves by no means is going to make you successful, because everybody else is also there.” 

This week, the 6-year-old supplements brand Cymbiotika is launching chain-wide at Target, at all 1,900-plus locations. Target is Cymbiotika’s first mass retail launch, though it entered Sprouts in 202. “We’ve had $100 million worth of these little packets sold,” said Shahab Elmi, Cymbiotika’s co-founder and CEO. Cymbiotika has grown 106% over the past year, and the Target launch is set to double its total number of retail locations. 

Elmi acknowledged that retailers are trying to stay on top of trends and competing for exclusive merchandise. “People saw the [wellness] gold rush around Covid, which was a big inflection point for the space,” Elmi said. “That’s the world we’re competing in.”

Elmi expects Target to be a big test for the brand’s mainstream appeal. One of the company’s challenges is that its price point is much higher than its competitors’, especially now that it’s on big box retail shelves. The brand’s monthly supply of supplement sachets costs $62-$88.

“Customers go to Amazon or CVS and see a vitamin C that’s $9.99, and then see ours and don’t understand why there is a massive discrepancy,” Elmi said. “But your body thinks our product is real food, so the absorption rates are much higher.” He noted the lack of fillers and preservatives and high-potency ingredients.

On October 8, the creatine supplement brand Create will also launch at Target stores nationwide.

Daniel McCormick, Create’s co-founder and CEO, told Modern Retail that “Create’s goal is to make creatine supplementation mainstream and a more approachable, enjoyable and trusted part of everyone’s daily routine.”

McCormick added that Target “has been a dream retail partner from the day we started thinking about starting Create.” The company originally started building the relationship with Target well over a year ago, coinciding with Target’s big 2025 wellness push.

“The Target team was interested in the creatine category, and specifically what was happening in creatine gummies,” McCormick said. “And we were able to get a meeting with them.” From there, it was a process of establishing what success looked like, executing against that plan, getting the business and the supply chains ready for the transformation, and collaborating closely with the Target team and broker partners.

As more health and wellness brands reach mass consumers via big -box chains, there is more pressure to stay on the shelf by making a splash and reaching high velocity. The biggest priority for Cymbiotika is to clearly message its products’ efficacy and be able to reach the right segment of Target’s consumer base.

Elmi said the sheer volume of products is making it difficult to stand out. “Unfortunately, the supplement space has been a race to the bottom for the past 20-30 years,” he said. “There is so much crap out there.” — Gabriela Barkho

Primark U.S. is making progress on its expansion plans

Irish apparel and home goods company Primark said it is seeing encouraging signs that its brand awareness is growing in the U.S. as it prepares to open its New York flagship in 2026, it told Modern Retail.

Primark, which opened its first U.S. store in Boston in 2015, has stepped up marketing efforts in the U.S. as it plots further growth, including through subway ads, billboards and creator-led social media videos. The company works with a minimum of 20 influencers per quarter, and it’s focused recent marketing campaigns on athleisure and budget-friendly looks for men, women and kids. 

Now, as it marks nearly one year since its first-ever brand campaign in the U.S., the company is seeing a lift in consideration, Rene Federico, head of marketing for Primark U.S., said. “We are seeing gains against our competitor set,” she said. “We are getting new customers into stores. All of that is really encouraging – and now, consistency is going to be a big driver of success.”

What has been key to this growth, as Federico sees it, is focusing on the company’s value proposition, which the company deems “quality fashion at value prices.” Primark pieces include a $13 T-shirt and $30 pants. Hyping up stores – the only place where shoppers can get Primark products, as it does not offer traditional e-commerce – has also helped differentiate Primark U.S. “The stores are our biggest retention lever,” Federico said. Primark aims to have 60 U.S. stores by the end of 2026.

Up next for Primark U.S. are its holiday campaigns, which will go live next month. “We’re focused on letting consumers know that they can shop [us] for every gift they need,” Federico said. The tone, she said, will be “inspired by the feeling of nostalgia that often accompanies that time of year.” Self-gifting will also play a role, as it has for many other retail players. — Julia Waldow

What we’re reading

• Stitch Fix has released a Generative AI styling experience in beta, which will revolve around using an image of a client’s likeness to showcase how different outfits would look on them.
• Luxury resale platform Fashionphile has entered the U.K. by acquiring a European competitor, Luxe Collective.
• Levi’s said during its earnings call last week that selective price increases so far have not led to a drop in demand.

What we’ve covered

• How Gymshark plans to grow its physical retail presence in the U.S.
• Parachute made headlines in June when it announced it was shutting down 19 of its brick-and-mortar stores. Here’s how the company says its scaled-down brick-and-mortar fleet has performed so far.
• How Hanna Andersson is using data gathered from its loyalty program to inform new products.