Who Owns Criterion?

Criterion arrived in the mid-2010s as Menards pushed its appliance department beyond reliance on third-party brands. The chain had long run private labels elsewhere in the store, and major appliances were a logical extension given the category's high ticket size and the margin available to retailer brands.

The launch centered on the core kitchen suite: refrigerators, freezers, ranges, dishwashers, and microwaves, supplemented later by laundry appliances. Pricing was positioned deliberately low, typically 20 to 40 percent under comparable national-brand models, aiming squarely at the value buyer who dominates Menards' Midwestern, heavily rural and exurban customer base.

Distribution has always been the brand's defining constraint and its moat. Criterion is stocked at every Menards location that sells appliances, roughly 340 stores across 15 states, and is not sold through any other retailer, which makes the label a traffic driver for the chain rather than a product competing for shelf space.

Through the late 2010s and 2020s the line broadened in step with Menards' store growth, and the dedicated criterionappliances.com website was established to support the label. As a private company Menards does not disclose Criterion's revenue, but the brand's sustained shelf presence across the chain's footprint indicates it has become a permanent part of the appliance assortment rather than a trial label.