Supermarkets Could Improve Health Messages: Speakers

MARK HAMSTRA

LAS VEGAS — Supermarkets have the opportunity to better tailor health-related messages to individual consumers, according to Stephen Vowles, senior vice president of marketing at Stop & Shop and Giant-Landover. Speaking at the Food Marketing Institute Show here yesterday on a panel about a new Coca-Cola Retailer Research Council report called “Connecting the Dots Between Food and Health: Expanding the Market for Retail Grocery,” Vowles also said focusing more carefully on health and wellness offers a means for supermarkets to better differentiate themselves from competitors. “Consumers want supermarkets to make it easy for them to take care of their health and to moderate their impact on the environment,” he said. “Over the next 10 years, I think there is going to be a huge change in consumer attitudes between food and health. Shelley Broader, president of Sweetbay and chair of the council study, said supermarkets have the opportunity to close the gap between what consumers say they want to do about eating better and what they actually do. “Consumers will make the connection between eating healthy and living healthy,” she said. “The question is, will we be there to fill that gap?”

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