Healthy foods include more than just fresh produce. Many options can be found in packaged food categories like salty and alternative snacks, for example.
Through commitments with the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), NACS, convenience retailers and distributors are transforming how the industry builds awareness and sales around healthier options.
NACS has many online resources that can help retailers identify packaged better-for-you products, such as using the Healthy Category Guide and the Healthier Product Calculator. Clever marketing and merchandizing strategies can help position those products in areas of the store that customers traditionally wouldn’t think to find them. Sometimes, mixing them in with other products in that category might even encourage a healthy choice over a more indulgent one.
One of the most recent NACS resources, “7 Tips to Grow Sales of Better-For-You Options,” can help retailers find ways to make the healthy choice the convenient choice.
Check out the “7 Tips” to see how your store measures up and access the Healthy Category Guide and Healthier Product Calculator at www.convenience.org/healthyoptions.
IN THE COMMUNITY
Each year, Rutter’s chooses employees to reward based on their excellent performance with $1,000 to donate to the charity of their choice through its Secret Santa program. In 2019, Rutter’s Children’s Charities donated $50,000, giving 50 employees a chance to help their community through the program. Since its inception in 2016, the Secret Santa program has donated more than $130,000 to various local charities.
On December 7, Weigel’s hosted its 22nd anniversary of Weigel’s Family Christmas, an event that brought 238 local Knoxville-area children in need and more than 300 volunteers together for a Christmas shopping spree. Each child was given $150 to shop at a local Target store. Since the program’s inception in 1998, it has impacted more than 4,200 children.
The Spinx Company founder Stewart Spinks and his wife, Martha, were awarded “Individual Philanthropist of the Year” on National Philanthropy Day in 2019. The Spinks were given the honor by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, an association dedicated to generating philanthropic support for a wide variety of charitable institutions. “Being a good neighbor and supporting the communities that help support us is extremely important to my family and the Spinx Company,” Spinks said. Spinks, a former NACS Board member, is involved in a variety of philanthropic organizations including the American Cancer Society, FAVOR Greenville, March of Dimes and others. He also founded his own charitable organization, The Spinks Family Foundation, which focuses on growing healthy kids by partnering with programs that focus on improving health, education, wellness and moral growth for the children of South Carolina.
To celebrate Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September 2019, Stripes Stores team members and customers joined with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to support cancer research, education and hospital programs for children and youth with cancer. Their combined efforts raised more than $720,000 through their annual store campaign, Stripes Stores Celebrates Tomorrows. Since 2014, Stripes stores have raised funds for MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital, donating nearly $6 million.
The GATE Foundation, the philanthropic affiliate of GATE Petroleum Company, presented $115,000 to the MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation to support the organization’s new Teen Center. Funds were raised during the foundation’s annual charity golf tournament.
Alto-Shaam donated $30,275 to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The charitable gift, which will go toward a research grant for aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, adds to more than $440,000 that the company has raised during the past decade-plus in honor of company founder Jerry Maahs, who lost a hard-fought battle with lymphoma in 2006.
GSP donated to 20 different charities chosen by its clients, representing a broad range of missions from disaster relief and children’s health to veteran’s assistance and environmental conservation. Charities that will benefit include American Red Cross, Children's Miracle Network, Disabled American Veterans, Give Kids The World Village, No Kid Hungry, United Cerebral Palsy, United Way and WaterAid, just to name a few.