Retail Industry Insights

Consumer interest in a plant-forward eating pattern continues to grow and providing shopper guidance to natural plant foods, new plant-based products and foodservice options in the supermarket can help promote healthy sales and lifestyles. However, when talking about plant-based foods it’s important to use the right “language” to enhance your customer’s appetites for them. Based on research form the World Resource Institute’s (W.R.I.) Better Buying Lab, they identified ways the food industry should and shouldn’t talk about these foods to help increase the appeal and sales.

The burden on the shoulders of your CEO has never been heavier since they first heard the words COVID-19. Many RDBA member companies have turned on a dime: ramping up e-commerce, redesigning in-store self service bars, implementing new sanitization procedures, and investing heavily into new technologies including micro-fulfillment centers. And those were the easy ones.

As parents look for faster and easier ways to gather trusted information about what goes into the foods they buy for their families, retail dietitians can use their expertise to instill knowledge and advice that will help shoppers feel confident shopping your stores. Here are some ideas for developing your communication strategy:

COVID-19 has impacted every facet of our lives. From how we work, to how we play, how we learn and how we interact, nothing is as it used to be. This is especially true for matters related to food. How we shop, where we shop, what we eat and how we eat have all been affected.  The more supermarket registered dietitian nutritionists know about these trends, the better they can educate their shoppers.

When it comes to communicating your health and nutrition services to consumers online, it’s crucial that they can find products and programs that integrate with their daily needs and routine activities. To gain trust as a wellness resource and reach your target customers effectively you need to understand the following about your audience:

For our next installment of virtual comp shops, we are looking at insights from Dollar General stores.

The retail industry is filled with acronyms, and during a recent webinar Grocery Convergence: Five Sensible Solutions to Win the Future of Food Retailing, the concept of convergence at retail was discussed, adding a new term to the list.

To ensure retail RDs are gaining insights from other retailers (both grocery and non-grocery), the RDBA team is bringing virtual comp shops to you.

The Make Every Bite Count with Beef Retail Dietitian Activation Kit provides simple, evidence-based solutions with products found at your stores.

Since the pandemic, many individuals are looking at the future differently and while many of the old, familiar routines were swept away, several new positive habits have taken hold. As consumers begin to reenter work places and return their kids to school this fall, they desire to hang on to their positive changes. Retail RDNs are in a unique position to help customers stick with their new rituals, but must be aware of how shopper values and time have been reprioritized.