Price Chopper Wellness Program Wins Award

“Well@Work,”  Price Chopper Supermarkets’ wellness program managed in partnership with MVP Health Care, has won the Gold Level Worksite Wellness Award for 2012 from the Vermont Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. “At Price Chopper, we’re committed to helping people feed and care for themselves and their families,” said Mona Golub, Price Chopper’s Vice President of Public Relations and Consumer & Marketing Services.  “Giving our teammates access to the best fitness and nutrition information and programs encourages them to work toward their own best health, which in turn, inspires them to share useful and valuable information with our customers.” “Our Well@Work program, in partnership with MVP, equips our teammates to lead by healthy example.  We are so pleased to be recognized for these efforts by the Vermont Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and look forward to many more years of healthy initiatives for our Vermont customers and teammates,” Golub said. Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin presented the award to the Golub Corporation, the parent company of Price Chopper Supermarkets, at the 2013 Worksite Wellness conference in Burlington, VT on March 27. In existence since 2006, Well@Work—developed, operated and evaluated by MVP in close collaboration with Price Chopper—aims to create a workplace culture of wellness through mechanisms designed to measurably improve employee health. The program includes a dedicated intranet site, engaging health initiatives such as an annual customized weight loss challenge, monthly wellness workshops, fitness discounts for participants, online tools and a regular educational newsletter. MVP helps Price Chopper support the program through strategic guidance, environmental and organizational policy updates, population health management consultation and interest and satisfaction surveys. The program has yielded many positive results since its inception, including a 129-percent increase in the number of employees eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and a 46-percent increase in employee perception of how committed Price Chopper is to the health and wellness of its workers. 2012 marks the fourth year that Well@Work has received recognition from the Vermont Governor’s Council, and the second year in a row the program has received a Gold Level distinction. MVP’s own employee wellness program has also won recognition from Vermont for the past two years. This year, the program received a Silver Level award. “We are always striving to make the wellness programs we design for our customers as well as our employees as relevant and beneficial as possible,” said Tracy Tadaro-Ott, Vice President of Account Management and Health Promotion at MVP. “Vermont’s Worksite Wellness award program provides a very thorough, rigorous benchmark for our work, and we truly value and appreciate the feedback we receive from its administrators each year.”