‘Clean medicine’ brand expands into Target’s new baby aisle

At Target, the baby aisle is quickly becoming a one-stop shop for parents.

As part of its latest turnaround effort appealing to “busy families,” the retailer is courting more premium brands in a bid to expand its baby aisle, and now pediatric medicine brand Genexa is joining the lineup after making the leap from the medicine aisle.

The move places Genexa’s pain, fever, cold and flu, and allergy medicines alongside diapers, wipes, and popular registry items, in what co-founder David Johnson called a “very novel” arrangement, given that most of its products are sold at pharmacies.

Ever since the closure of category killer Buy Buy Baby, Johnson said, there has been a lack of retailers offering a “whole experience,” where diapers, strollers, formula, and medicine are all available in the same department.

Genexa is projecting that its products will make up 15% of Target’s infant OTC drug category, as it expands the number of SKUs available and whips up special offerings such as “registry-ready bundles” aimed at supplying parents with everything they need for “Baby’s First Sick Day.”

Clean break: Genexa is available at other retailers, including Walmart, which it courted with a celebrity-helmed marketing video, but its relationship with Target began with a series of conversations around “clean medicine,” a growing category of drugs that do not include artificial additives.

“That was one of the things that helped us open the door,” Johnson said, adding that Genexa’s products qualified under Target’s own standards.

In addition to this latest brand partnership, Target is embracing clean labeling more broadly. The Clean Label Project, a nonprofit working to increase the transparency of consumer product labels, announced this week that it was spotlighting certified products in the baby and infant formula sections of Target stores across the country.

“Parents and caregivers shopping for infant formula and baby products deserve to know exactly what’s in the products they’re buying,” Molly Hamilton, executive director of the Clean Label Project, said in a statement.