by Jennifer Silverberg, Landmark Consulting, www.landmarkconsulting.com
There’s a great article today in the St. Petersburg times: ClickHereforArticle. This is an excellent example of how to put together what is best for the consumer AND what is best for your business, to make marketing magic!
The gist of the story is that a FL-based supermarket chain called Sweetbay has started identifying its most nutritous offerings with one, two, or three stars, three stars being the most nutritious. Using a trademarked formula developed by health experts, Sweetbay goes so far as to examine its own offerings, even when they don’t earn a star - of 300 SKUs of Sweetbay’s On The Go Bistro frozen entrees, only one was nutritious enough to get a rating.
While 94 percent of the produce department earned at least one star, other categories did not fare as well; for example, only 5 percent of the bakery items were nutritious enough to be rated at all.
Lest you think this is an uncharacteristically altruistic move by a retailer, we should point out that unit sales of the rated items rose 10-15% after the addition of the labels. And since, in their own words, “the best-rated foods typically are fresh and go down the more they are processed,” the non-branded, higher-margin “fresh foods” on the periphery of the store were the big winners.
In short, the trade recognized and leveraged the fact that the healthiest foods in the stores also tended to be the highest-margin for them … and in the process, also provided their customers with a genuine wellness service! Bravo!!