Target is re-opening its looted Minneapolis store, adding a wider variety of spices and remodeling changes to improve its reputation with Black shoppers

• A Target store in Minneapolis, looted during this summer’s national unrest over police brutality, reopened on November 10. 
• Company executives met with Black residents and employees to take suggestions on how to improve the store to meet their needs, Bloomberg reported.
• Updates stemming from these conversations include adding more spice varieties and bringing the pharmacy to the front of the store to aid elderly customers. 
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Target’s Minneapolis store will offer more spices to appeal to Black residents nearby.

The store, damaged during the summer’s nationwide unrest over police brutality, reopened on November 10. Ahead of reopening, Target executives met with Black residents, employees, and community organizers to “ask what they wanted to see in the reconstructed store,” Bloomberg reported.

Community-suggested updates include adding more spice varieties, bringing the pharmacy to the front of the store to aid elderly customers, and putting lighting at a nearby rail station to increase safety, according to Bloomberg.

Looters emptied shelves and smashed windows on the Minneapolis Target store in May. Earlier that month, video surfaced depicting Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, for several minutes until he stopped moving and was later pronounced dead. 

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Target said in a release that the company reshaped the store by adding an additional entrance and expanding the beauty and food sections to "better serve the local community." The company said it donated $125,000 in food and essential supplies to the neighborhood while the store rebuilt. 

The company partnered with a Black-owned contracting company to help carry out some requests, and plans to speak with other diverse communities on what they'd like to see in Target stores going forward, per Bloomberg.

"We have to make sure that the solutions we're putting forward are informed by the insights of our own Black team members, our Black guests, the Black community," Laysha Ward, Target vice president and chief external engagement officer, told Bloomberg. 

Target temporarily closed or limited hours at 200 stores during the summer following Floyd's death. Target came under fire for its work with the Minneapolis Police Department. Slate earlier reported the company established a "SafeZone" program to help police with surveillance logistics.