Inside Target’s toy workshop and strategy to grow its house brands

Target execs typically aren’t comfortable picking favorites — they love everything in the store, naturally — but SVP Jenny Breeden, who oversees owned brand product design and packaging, reached for the plush toy charcuterie box set — complete with a smiling fig and a winking hunk of blue cheese. “Not for the kids,” Breeden declared. “This is for a hostess gift. A party. This is going to be mine. It’s my favorite.” It sells for $10.

Breeden showed Strib retail reporter Carson Hartzog and me around the Target HQ toy design workshop of Gigglescape, a house brand the retailer launched in 2024. It was one week before Christmas, but no elves scurried about — just product designers Ellen Rizzardi and Jeff Carter, whose heads are already in Halloween and Christmas 2026. Still, they were happy to offer some insights into what’s selling this holiday season.

They started where Gigglescape started: with plush toys. “We were talking to parents, asking what’s important when you buy plush, and we let their kids roam the room,” Rizzardi said, gesturing around the design workshop (every house brand has one at the Target’s Minneapolis headquarters, with its current product collection arranged on display shelves and a color guide and materials for what’s coming next). Her design partner, Carter, took the cue, shoving his hand inside the mouth of a stuffed shark. He then held it up, as the boy had done during pre-launch testing. “The insight there is we need more interactivity … to surprise and delight kids.”

Gigglescape’s plush Yeti is a top seller this holiday, Breeden said. And that’s no surprise, considering a larger-than-life likeness dubbed the “Get Ready Yeti” has been a star of Target’s holiday marketing. Along the same lines, there’s a 100-piece Gigglescape puzzle featuring a photo of Rudolph’s Mix, a seasonal snack mix you could eat while piecing the puzzle together. Expect to see more of this sort of cross-department promotion, Breeden said. “Because of the breadth of our owned-brand products, we can draw themes across categories and tell bigger stories.”

House brands continue to grow in importance for the retailer, which is struggling to regain its footing. Incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke has repeatedly emphasized his intent to lean into design creativity. Target currently has 40 of its own in-house brands, representing $30 billion in annual sales. Children’s clothing line Cat & Jack has surpassed the $3 billion mark, so extensions for kids are on Target’s hot list. Gigglescape is expanding into imaginative play at budget friendly price points — $10 for a doll; $25 for the entire kitchen sink (bubbles appear on the little plates when run under water).

“Our guest loves newness,” Breeden said. “We have to be bringing new ideas all the time.”

Joe Keeley had the luxury of being choosey about his next project after selling College Nannies to Bright Horizons in 2016 (and sticking around for three years to lead digital integration). In 2020, he came out of what he called a sabbatical to co-found and lead JustiFi, a fintech platform for software companies and franchise networks. The idea came from the Rally Ventures team, including managing partner Justin Kaufenberg, co-founder of SportsEngine and Casey Kipfer, SportsEngine’s former payments director (and brother of another co-founder, Carson Kipfer). Keeley said he’d give them five years with the goal of “taking a whiteboard idea from 0 to 1.” Five years later, JustiFi has surpassed $1 billion in annualized payment processing and Keeley is passing the baton to Brett MacKinnon, another SportsEngine alum, who had been serving as chief operating officer at JustiFi.

As for Keeley, who will remain a strategic adviser to JustiFi, he’s planning a short break before setting out on another venture. As he shared on LinkedIn, “[I will] look to see where I can best share my gifts to best impact the world next.”

The Walleye Tank, a launchpad for early-stage life science startups, will return in 2026 after a one-year hiatus. Founded in 2016 by the Office of Entrepreneurship at Mayo Clinic and long run in partnership with the University of Minnesota, HealthcareMN is now taking on the pitch-style competition. It fits well with the nonprofit’s mission to accelerate healthcare innovation, said executive director Rashmi Kandwal. Applications will open in January with competition planned for the spring. Around $20,000 in prize money is at stake, and the winner receives automatic entry into the quarterfinals of MN Cup, the largest statewide startup competition in the country. Several hot Minnesota med-tech startups have come out of Walleye Tank, including Q-Rounds, a virtual queue that takes the guesswork and long patient waits out of doctors’ hospital rounds, co-founded by Dr. Mike Pitt, a University of Minnesota professor of pediatrics.

A window into annual bonuses: Warroad-based window and door manufacturer Marvin held its annual meeting on Dec. 18 and continued its 68-year profit sharing program, announcing $13.7 million to be divided among more than 8,000 eligible employees. That’s down from $17 million in 2024. Full-time employees received between $1,345 and $4,231 this year, depending on length of service. “I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished in 2025,” CEO Paul Marvin told employees. “But I’m even more optimistic about what’s to come.”

Corporate retreat: South Dakota businessman Dave Billion paid $4 million for 3M’s northern Minnesota corporate retreat, the Wonewok Conference center. Billion told Strib reporter Kim Hyatt he plans to maintain the property on Big Mantrap Lake in the same vein. “We will do our best to emulate what 3M did. But just maybe broaden it out.”

From cabin to chalet: Caribou Coffee’s new CEO Scott Kennedy sat down for a $7 latte with my colleague Victor Stefanescu to discuss his new strategy of emphasizing cozy “chalet”-style coffee shops over the small “cabin” storefronts of a pre-pandemic era. “A drive-thru-only box isn’t personal.”