Eighty-one percent of the food retailers that responded to a new Food Marketing Institute (FMI) survey currently view supermarket health and wellness programs as a significant business growth opportunity in the years ahead.
That figure is up from 70 percent in 2014.
The new report, “FMI Retailer Contributions to Health & Wellness 2017,” demonstrates the investment food retailers are making on behalf of their customers, communities and employees.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- 72 percent of respondents also view health and wellness as a significant growth opportunity for their own store brand.
- 89 percent of food retailer respondents have established health and wellness programs for customers, employees or both, and 96 percent are committed to expanding programs in their stores.
- In 2014, FMI became aware of two primary leadership teams responsible for operationalized health and wellness initiatives: pharmacy (59 percent) and nutrition (50 percent) leadership teams. Seventy-one percent of these experts are leading the decision process on how programs are established and operationalized.
- In more than 50 percent of stores, product sampling, healthy recipes and good-for-you-products (each at 86 percent) were ranked highest. Smartphone apps and text programs for creating grocery lists was second at 68 percent.
