Ritual Vitamins Enter Target
Vitamin brand Ritual is entering Target.
Four products, including Essential for Women 18+ and Essential for Men 18+, each $35, and Essential Prenatal and Essential Postnatal, both $40, will now be available at the retailer. The brand will be featured in Target’s Zero (waste reduction) and Clean (following Target’s specific clean standards) collections.
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“We’re excited to bring our industry leading vision of traceability and make that really accessible to everyone and really empower people to make confident choices for their health wherever they shop and that is very aligned with Target’s vision,” Ritual’s founder and chief executive officer Katerina Schneider told WWD.
In the crowded supplement category, Ritual stands out for its traceability efforts. On Ritual’s website, consumers can trace every aspect of each ingredient, including why it’s used, the country it’s sourced from and how it’s supplied. In the U.S., supplements are not regulated by the Food & Drug Administration.
The brand, which launched direct-to-consumer in 2016, previously made its first major foray into retail when it launched at Whole Foods in the fall. While Ritual has been a leader on shelves at the retailer according to Schneider, Target was always the goal for entering the mass market.
“Target was really a natural progression for us into mass. It was always part of our vision of really becoming a household name and becoming an iconic brand. Our customer is the Target guest and customer,” Schneider said.
In addition to providing traceability information, Rituals also conducts third-party testing and clinical trials on its supplements, which can be found on the site. Schneider said skepticism is key when it comes to purchasing an efficacious product.
“We say for skeptics, by skeptics,” she joked, referring to Ritual’s mission.
In an effort to reflect all of these key points, the brand’s display in Target will include promotional materials highlighting the technology of Ritual’s delayed-release capsules, meant to allow for optimal absorption, and its third party testing. Unit cartons will highlight ingredient traceability.
“We’re trying to bring a lot of those elements of the site in a condensed version,” Schneider said, though she expects many users will come in with previous brand recognition.
Ritual’s expansion into Whole Foods and Amazon proved the brand’s years of digital marketing to be successful, according to Schneider, as consumers recognized the products prior to purchasing.
“We’ve already built in this awareness and trust of the brand through years of marketing to this consumer,” Schneider said. Now, consumers can physically experience the products they’ve seen online.
Amazon, Whole Foods and Target allow for customers to really test the product in a less committed way that the subscriptions on the brand’s direct-to-consumer site.
Prior to its first major retail launch last year, Ritual had amassed more than $100 million in net sales in 2021, according to the brand. To date, according to the brand, it has also acquired more than 1 million customers and shipped more than 10 million bottles of its vitamins.
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