Refresh

The new Health Starts Here program at Whole Foods Market launched at all of the chain’s 289 locations, and marks an interesting juncture in the evolution of the chain.

The retailer states the program is a “deepening of our commitment to healthy eating by providing education and support tools to inspire interest in foods that help improve and maintain health and vitality.”

Yours truly thinks it’s more a case of Whole Foods getting back to basics after a period of fast living; if nothing else, there were some bouts of binge eating that saw the chain more focused on growth than reinforcing its core values.

The recession has changed all of that. Profits dropped, shoppers sought cheaper options and the company’s fabled double-digit expansion ground to a halt. With the truck by the side of the road and the engine smoking, it seemed a good time to take stock of the situation.

To kickstart slumping sales, Whole Foods introduced a number of money-saving promotions and has given its 365 private label a higher profile. That kept enough shoppers coming back, but the chain must have also realized that over the past few years, as it made appeals to more mainstream, casual shoppers, it was alienating its core customer.

This latest initiative should please everyone, because the beauty is that it gives Whole Foods much-needed cache as a destination for weight management and healthy living, while providing a perfect excuse for culling the aisles of products, added during the high-living years, that don’t really — and never did — fit in with its core mission. more…

Dieting is an American way of life. A new survey from Catalina Marketing founds that weight management has a “strong influence” on the grocery purchases of 56% of American shoppers and at least “some influence” on the purchases of another one-third.

Even more striking is the fact that four out of 10 shoppers followed some type of diet in the past year.

Yet, food products promoting themselves as diet-friendly or waistline-smart don’t necessarily fly off the shelves. In large part, that’s because as a group, dieters are a diverse bunch. The study found there are different types of dieters, different goals and different levels of willingness to spend on diet-related products.

For instance, those following name-brand diets or lifestyles spend more than $3,400 on groceries per year, while those who focus simply on low-fat foods, regardless of brand, spend just over $800.

Catalina researchers queried more than 4,000 shoppers and used their answers to create six shopper segments: Low-Fat & Fit, Carb Conscious, Calorie-Conscious, Unconcerned Families, Healthy Habits and Devoted Dieters. Some of the insights for each include:

Low-Fat & Fit (11 million shoppers): This group reports the lowest level of concern managing or losing weight with 41% “very concerned.” Thirty-two percent of this segment says weight-management has a strong influence on the type of groceries they buy. more…

And just when we were starting to think the storyline had gone stagnant: Last week the Food and Drug Administration stated that they had “some concerns” about health risks posed by bisphenol-A, or BPA, the chemical used to strengthen plastic that appears in food packaging, baby bottles and other reusable containers.

The statement goes against one the agency made in 2008 that said the chemical was safe. That decision was a disappointment to many in the environmental and medical community — a disappointment compounded by a report that came shortly after from the National Toxicology Program (part of the National Institutes of Health) criticizing the FDA’s stance.

So what made the FDA change its mind? Credit the progressive new attitude coming from the Obama administration, under whom the agency has taken aggressive steps to safeguard public health. There’s also been the increased media attention on studies linking BPA to various ailments, from cancer to impaired brain development.

“I think that they could no longer hide from the evidence,” said Alex Formuzis, spokesman for the Environmental Working Group, when I interviewed him earlier today. “The facts were so stacked against their former position that they had no place to go.”

The chemical and manufacturing industries, for their part, are stating that the evidence is inconclusive. The American Chemistry Council released a statement saying they are “disappointed that some of the recommendations are likely to worry consumers and are not well-founded.”

But consumers have already made up their mind. more…

The fact that February is American Heart Month (thanks American Heart Association) is no coincidence. Of course, it’s linked to Valentine’s Day. These are two events worthy of driving some in-store events with a health theme. Anything promoting Heart Month is a no-brainer and the resources and volunteers from your local AHA affiliate make it easier.

The first Friday in February has been declared Wear Red Day, and it’s a great boost for some in-aisle activities, sampling demos and media events. But putting a healthy spin on Valentine’s Day may take a bit more thinking. So put on your thinking caps and add to this starter list for February is Heart Month!

• Plan some demonstrations and samplings of heart-healthy recipe tweaking. Try adding ground flax seed, oat bran or whole oats to foods; substituting some whole grains; or baking and cooking with heart-healthy fats and oils (in reasonable amounts of course). Substituting applesauce or fruit purees for some of the fat in baking mixes remind people that you can make some small changes that still leave you with flavor.

• Plan some heart-healthy Valentine-worthy meals ideas. A glazed salmon, roasted vegetables and garlic with a spinach, strawberry and walnut salad looks and tastes special but provides your loved ones with the benefits of omega-3s and phytonutrients. more…

We’ve been contributing to Refresh for more than two years (woohoo!), and in that time we’ve had fun watching retailers become bloggers themselves. Jim Hiller, president of Hiller’s in Detroit, muses at great length on the company website. Safeway’s blog gets regular updates from “Kate”, a proud mom and worker with the company. There’s also Yoke’s Fresh Market in Spokane, Wash., whose blog contributors include category managers like Ken Chapin, who heads up the meat department.

Well heads up, because another retailer joined the blogosphere last week, and it’s perhaps the most sophisticated one to date. AlbertsonsWellbeing.com is the new health and wellness blog and online community from Albertsons. It includes a superhero-esque lineup of contributors covering a range of culinary and wellness topics. There’s Kyle Gorham, “The Foodie”; Laurie Raymundo, “The Busy Mom”; pharmacist Jeff Ward, “The Fit Doctor”; and several others.

Just in the first couple days, contributors have posted on dieting in the New Year, the importance of cleaning out your medicine cabinet, and why it’s important to eat healthy throughout the day.

The beauty of blogging is that you can reach a wider audience, stay on top of the latest issues, and all while having a little fun. Writing here, we can let loose a bit, moreso than we could in print for SN Whole Health or Supermarket News. And supermarkets, likewise, can show their customers their lighter side. more…

When it comes to pesticides, potatoes are heavy hitters. They can receive up to 19 sprays in a single growing season. Farmers often spray on a weekly basis, or even more frequently to try to prevent blight. They also spray herbicides to kill the tops of the plants at the end of the growing season to make the underground tubers easier to harvest.

That’s why it’s so difficult to find organic potatoes, because the things are really tough to grow. It’s a high-value, but vulnerable, crop.

Every once in a while we hear from the Wisconsin Eco-Potato partnership, which was established in 1996 by the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association (WPVGA) and the University of Wisconsin. The goal has been to develop ways to minimize chemical use and promote sustainable farming. The effort has produced advances in integrated pest management, water conservation, soil protection and yields without the use of genetic modification.

In 2001, the group introduced the Healthy Grown label. In order to get it, farmers and their products are certified by Protected Harvest, an independent oversight organization created to monitor the overall effort. Healthy Grown has compiled an eight-year database tracing IPM and pesticide use, which is shared with the university and other organizations like the International Crane Foundation, the Defenders of Wildlife and the World Wildlife Fund.

“One of Healthy Grown’s greatest strengths is the collaboration between researchers, conservationists and growers,” notes A.J. Bussan, associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Healthy Grown emerged from a targeted set of specific sustainability standards, but all of us continue to challenge those standards.” more…

In this Brave New World of bioterrorism, retailers who truly value their own in-house brands are presenting vendors with a Yellow Pages-size stack of forms to fill in for food safety purposes. All I can say is “Bring it on - it’s about time!”

The question I ask myself is why it took a terrorist attack to finally focus attention to the products pouring into our food supply.

One of the perks of my job is traveling the world to visit factories that manufacture food products. That said, one can only imagine what I’ve witnessed over the years — a veritable Clint Eastwood feast of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”!

I am not sure that I can always consider this aspect of my job a perk. When you are living out of a suitcase for weeks on end, washing undergarments in the hotel sink, exhausted from too much travel, too much food, too much stimulation and far too little sleep, you finally arrive home only to have folks ask about your vacation!

A vacation for me means that I can set aside worrying about quality issues for a few short days, knowing that I’ve done my part. more…

A lot is being made of New York City’s move to limit sodium in foods sold in the five boroughs. This latest initiative — the city has already banned trans fats and requires restaurants to post calorie counts — seeks to prod manufacturers and restaurant kitchens to cut back on the salt.

The official goal is to reduce the amount of sodium in packaged food and foodservice by an average of 25% over the next five years. This is only a suggestion. There’s no law or regulation taking effect here. In effect, the city is asking companies to join in a voluntary campaign to reduce the amount of sodium city consumers are taking in.

That’s all good stuff, but published reports point out that the big packaged food companies have been quietly removing sodium from products like soup and prepared foods for some time now. Perhaps the most progressive company on this front has been Campbell Soup Co. ConAgra is also working on it, as is Progresso, Unilever, Sara Lee and other big brand-name food makers.

Have you ever tried a low-sodium version of a product? Did you buy it again? I recall trying a low-salt version of a vegetable juice I really liked, and I thought I was drinking liquid cardboard. What I ended up doing was cutting the regular version with water in the belief that I was at least diluting the sodium content. more…

In the four years I’ve lived in New York, I’ve gotten used to buying only what I can carry home from the grocery store. Doing this is nice because its quick, because it’s good exercise, and because we waste less food. But man, sometimes I can’t help but remember fondly those days (college) when I’d load down the car with everything I needed — and didn’t need — for the week, and just drive home.

The automobile, that symbol of American independence, offers many of the conveniences and efficiencies we enjoy. And yet its excessive in so many ways as well, for ourselves and for the environment. In the down economy, Americans scrapped 14 million cars and only purchased 10 million, according to a new study by the Earth Policy Institute, leading to a 2% decline in the country’s auto fleet. That’s the first decline since World War 2.

Much of this is due to people taking advantage of the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program, and generally unburdening themselves of the financial weight that comes with owning a car. But the EPI says there’s also evidence that, particularly amongst younger consumers, people want to skip the car to help reduce emissions. It’s possible that by 2020, the institute says, we could own 10% less than the current fleet. more…

I first saw health kits during a store tour of Ukrop’s Super Markets in Richmond, Va. Bobby Ukrop, the CEO, told me the chain was going to start offering five genetic testing kits, which would indicate a person’s predisposition to heart disease, diabetes and similar conditions.

That was 5 years ago — a lifetime in the field of medical technology (and the supermarket business, too. Ukrop’s has been sold to Ahold’s Giant-Carlisle). I don’t know if they’re still offering the kits, but plenty of retailers have implemented such services through their pharmacies and wellness centers. These exams, for a fee that averages around $100, are sent off to independent labs for processing, and the results are meant to be discussed with a physician or someone versed in wellness, like a pharmacist.

The key to these tests is that they are not a diagnosis or even a prediction. “But they are results that can be modified through diet or lifestyle changes,” is what Bobby Ukrop told me back then. The same is true today.

These kinds of test kits will likely get a big leg up in the coming year as NBC’s hit series, “The Biggest Loser”, prepares to use a new health risk assessment tool that identifies the contestant’s disease risk, as well as their “internal age,” life expectancy and estimated preventable medical expenses. more…