Retailers Adopting Healthy Incentives Program

A growing slate of grocery retailers nationwide have adopted the employee-sponsored NutriSavings health and wellness program, which incentivizes the buying of nutritious foods for shoppers at the grocery store.

Currently available to employees of East Coast-based Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and most recently MaineHealth, a Portland-based healthcare network, NutriSavings offers those enrolled a series of financial rewards, digital tools including nutrition panels and ingredient lists, and healthy recipes and tips.

The program ranks products on a 100-point scale based upon nutritional value, with foods high in fiber, protein and vitamins commanding the highest scores, and foods heavy in sodium, sugar and fat carrying the lowest. Consumers then purchase products using their loyalty cards -- which sync up with the program -- and are provided with cash rewards based upon their monthly averaged totals, as well as real-time updates of their health progress.

With chronic health conditions and obesity-related diseases an ever-present concern, the NutriSavings program is an extension of continued efforts -- such as health screenings and gym membership incentives -- to offset skyrocketing healthcare costs for employers and employees, and to support the overall trend toward healthy lifestyle choices.

NutriSavings Benefits Retailers 

For retailers, adopting the program offers a bevy of additional benefits, such as receiving the latest in demographics and shopping trends, additional marketing opportunities for private-brand products, as well as increased volume and average basket share on healthy, high-margin items.

So far, Hannaford Supermarkets, which has adopted the program chain-wide and is the most active retailer currently accepting NutriSavings, has leveraged the program to further its wellness mission.  

"Hannaford has been focusing on affordable healthy choices and this partnership [with MaineHealth] provides another avenue to support shoppers," Julie Green, healthy living manager for Scarborough, Maine-based Hannaford, told Progressive Grocer.

"In addition to the financial rewards that participants get through their employer, we have the opportunity to offer additional savings on Hannaford brand products that support good health, which furthers our healthy affordable mission," Green said.

With more than 70 retailers currently leveraging the program, NutriSavings is receiving positive feedback and seeking aggressive expansion.  "We have a national network of grocery retailers," Jeremy Doak, VP of the Newton, Mass.-based company, told PG, "and as such we are actively selling the solution to employers, health insurance companies, and wellness providers across the country."

More information on the NutriSavings platform is available on the company's website.