Yvette Waters

NUTRITION STRATEGIST AND BRAND INFLUENCER, RALEY’S, WEST SACRAMENTO, CALIF.

What’s one cool thing you’ve done in the past year to help elevate/promote health and wellness at retail?

Yvette Waters: Over this past year, many things have happened in the space of retail dietetics. While focusing on our education and support to our team members and customers on topics such as sanitation and safety, immunity and overall health through the pandemic, we also opened a brand-new concept store and converted two of our existing stores to a new format, known as the Raley’s O-N-E Market.

O-N-E is an acronym for organics, nutrition and education, and the Raley’s O-N-E Market is the next step in our company’s transformation and the full representation of our vision of infusing life with health and happiness by changing the way the world eats—one plate at a time. This unique shopping destination blends our 85-year commitment to exceptional service with our recent bold moves focused on transparency and education.

At Raley’s O-N-E Market, we offer a highly curated assortment of products that meet consistent high standards of health, nutrition and sustainability. And we back that up with education so one can understand why those products were selected for our shelves, while having nutrition advisers and registered dietitians in the store. Through our Something Extra Health program, the nutrition advisers help support by doing employee nutrition education and continuing education, along with offering several free nutrition services to our customers. 

What’s next as we ease out of the pandemic?

It has definitely been a time of quick adjustments and changes in efforts to support our teams and customers in this past year. We had the unique experience of launching the Something Extra Health program in June 2020, right in the height of COVID-19. We began with all the protocols in place and created virtual programing and offerings for our customers. We are now focusing on building out these services to a more in-person approach, as permitted, while also expanding different offerings and services. I think that developing a bit of a hybrid approach, focusing on how we can offer as many services as possible in-person and in the digital realm, will be important to support our customers on their health and wellness journey, while also continuing to expand our reach as retail dietitians.