Walmart tries to beef up its grocery business by selling ready meals
Walmart will start offering prepared meals at its stores for the first time, a move that could help the nation’s biggest grocer sell more food while siphoning customers from restaurant chains. Ten different meals are now available in 250 stores, and the programme will expand to 2,000 locations by the end of 2018, Walmart executives said in an interview. The company also is introducing four $15 meal-kit options in stores, expanding a business that had previously only been offered online through outside vendors. "More than 80% of Americans don’t know what they will have for dinner tonight," said Tyler Lehr, a Walmart senior vice-president. Scrambling to find a meal "puts pressure on a family", he said. The move is the latest step to improve Walmart’s grocery business, the chain’s biggest source of revenue. It has upgraded its beef to certified Angus, cultivated a sweeter variety of cantaloupe that can be sold year-round, and recently developed a better way to track the freshness of fr...
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