New Safeway Initiatives Aim to Help Shoppers Eat Healthier
PLEASANTON, Calif. -- Safeway Inc. yesterday said it is launching a series of health and wellness initiatives aimed at helping its customers make healthier and more nutritious choices when shopping in its stores.
Safeway officials outlined the initiative during a day-long summit hosted by California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to address the state's obesity epidemic. During the summit, leaders and experts from business, transportation, education, government, and public health communities met to suggest reforms to improve California's health landscape by providing its citizens with new opportunities to eat healthy and engage in regular activity.
Safeway chairman, president and c.e.o. Steve Burd is part of the advisory panel that helped plan the summit. Following are highlights of Safeway's commitments announced yesterday:
-- Nutritional Icons on Safeway-Branded Products: Safeway will develop and market its products with specially designed nutritional icons that help consumers make more informed choices for their lifestyles. Safeway is working with health experts to develop symbols for private label food packaging.
-- Expansion of the "Eating Right" Product Line: The chain is expanding its ready-to-eat Eating Right product line, which will include special labeling and nutritional information.
-- Integration of Natural/Organic Food Products in California Store Aisles: Safeway will launch an initiative to integrate natural and organic food choices into every aisle of its California stores. Safeway is introducing a new organic product line called "O" Organics.
-- Testing Healthier Choices At Check-Out Stands: In select California markets, the company will test consumer response to providing additional healthier choice products in an effort to provide a wider range of healthy food options to consumers in every facet of our store environment.
-- Partnership with Dean Ornish: The chain launched a new partnership with Dean Ornish, MD, chairman of the company's Advisory Council on Health and Nutrition. Ornish is the founder, president, and director of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) in Sausalito, California. He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. For the past 25 years, Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease, without drugs or surgery. Safeway will underwrite a chair at the PRMI that will fund critical research and studies to better understand and improve consumer health and nutrition.
-- Nutrition/Healthier Eating Summits and Forums: Safeway has committed to host a series of informational summits with experts on nutrition to share ideas in which all sectors can improve consumer choices relating to healthier lifestyles.
Safeway officials outlined the initiative during a day-long summit hosted by California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to address the state's obesity epidemic. During the summit, leaders and experts from business, transportation, education, government, and public health communities met to suggest reforms to improve California's health landscape by providing its citizens with new opportunities to eat healthy and engage in regular activity.
Safeway chairman, president and c.e.o. Steve Burd is part of the advisory panel that helped plan the summit. Following are highlights of Safeway's commitments announced yesterday:
-- Nutritional Icons on Safeway-Branded Products: Safeway will develop and market its products with specially designed nutritional icons that help consumers make more informed choices for their lifestyles. Safeway is working with health experts to develop symbols for private label food packaging.
-- Expansion of the "Eating Right" Product Line: The chain is expanding its ready-to-eat Eating Right product line, which will include special labeling and nutritional information.
-- Integration of Natural/Organic Food Products in California Store Aisles: Safeway will launch an initiative to integrate natural and organic food choices into every aisle of its California stores. Safeway is introducing a new organic product line called "O" Organics.
-- Testing Healthier Choices At Check-Out Stands: In select California markets, the company will test consumer response to providing additional healthier choice products in an effort to provide a wider range of healthy food options to consumers in every facet of our store environment.
-- Partnership with Dean Ornish: The chain launched a new partnership with Dean Ornish, MD, chairman of the company's Advisory Council on Health and Nutrition. Ornish is the founder, president, and director of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) in Sausalito, California. He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. For the past 25 years, Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease, without drugs or surgery. Safeway will underwrite a chair at the PRMI that will fund critical research and studies to better understand and improve consumer health and nutrition.
-- Nutrition/Healthier Eating Summits and Forums: Safeway has committed to host a series of informational summits with experts on nutrition to share ideas in which all sectors can improve consumer choices relating to healthier lifestyles.