Stop & Shop serves up free meal planning service

Stop & Shop is offering customers free access to The Dinner Daily meal planning service in recognition of National Family Meals Month.

The Quincy, Mass.-based supermarket chain said Wednesday that up to 30,000 customers can join and use The Dinner Daily at no charge through the end of 2019. Through the service, shoppers will receive a customized weekly dinner menu based on their family’s food preferences as well as what’s on sale at their local Stop & Shop.

Tools in The Dinner Daily program are designed to make it easier for families to put together meals for everyone, including emailed weekly meal plans, meals based on weekly sale items at Stop & Shop, and an editable shopping list so users can include all of their weekly grocery needs.

The service also enables users to customize food preferences, dietary needs and family size. Menu options include reduced carbs, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, egg-free and “stick to the basics,” among others. Stop & Shop customers, too, can use The Daily Dinner’s one-click ordering for Peapod, the chain’s online grocery service, for home delivery or in-store pickup.

“As our customers adjust to busy back-to-school routines, we’re hoping to make dinners easier with this stress-free way to plan their weekly family meals and save money while doing it,” Stop & Shop Chief Marketing Officer Whitney Clarke said in a statement. “Stop & Shop and The Dinner Daily are excited to offer this service to our customers to help take the challenge out of the nightly ‘what’s for dinner’ question.”

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Held each September, National Family Meals Month was started in 2015 by the Food Marketing Institute Foundation to encourage families to get together for one more meal at home each week. Citing the nonprofit Family Dinner Project initiative, Stop & Shop and The Dinner Daily said research has shown that family meals can tighten bonds between family members and lead to improved academic performance and self-esteem, a greater sense of resilience and lower rates of obesity.

“Family meals bring so many benefits. The Dinner Daily makes having family meals not only easier, but more affordable too,” commented Laurin Mills, founder and CEO of The Dinner Daily. “Stop & Shop recognizes that it’s not easy to put a healthy meal on the table night after night. Planning healthy and simple dinners is an ongoing challenge for so many families, especially during this busy time of year. By providing this program, Stop & Shop is giving 30,000 of their customers an easy and time-saving solution, at no cost.”

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Part of Ahold Delhaize USA, Stop & Shop operates more than 400 stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.