Food Retailers Contribute to Health and Wellness: FMI

Food retailers are investing in health and wellness programs on behalf of their customers, communities and employees. According to Food Marketing Institute’s (FMI) latest report, “Retailer Contributions to Health & Wellness,” 81 percent of the food retailers that responded to the survey currently view supermarket health and wellness programs as a significant business growth opportunity for the entire industry in the years ahead. This figure is up from 70 percent in 2014.

Other key findings from the survey include:

In 2014, FMI reported awareness of two primary leadership teams responsible for operationalized health and wellness initiatives: pharmacy (59 percent) and nutrition (50 percent) leadership teams. Now there is an entire category of managers for health and wellness leadership, with 71 percent of these focused experts leading the decision process on how programs are established and operationalized. There is also commitment at the highest level of the companies (46 percent president and CEO).

In more than 50 percent of stores, product sampling (86 percent); healthy recipes (86 percent); and good-for-you-products (86 percent) were ranked highest. Smartphone apps and text programs for creating grocery lists were second at 68 percent.

FMI’s U.S. members operate nearly 40,000 retail food stores and 25,000 pharmacies, representing a combined annual sales volume of almost $770 billion. Through programs in public affairs, food safety, research, education and industry relations, FMI offers resources and provides valuable benefits to more than 1,225 food retail and wholesale member companies in the U.S. and around the world.