Delivering Health & Wellness with Private Brands
Shari Steinbach, MS RDN, RDBA Contributing Editor
Retailers that invest in developing a credible brand that delivers the taste, quality and health attributes that consumers demand will have huge upside opportunities to grow share. A recent report from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), Delivering Health & Wellness with Private Brands, illustrates current best practices and future opportunities for incorporating positive nutritional attributes and wellness messaging into private brand programs, and provides the resources and guidance for ensuring product offerings and educational resources meet the needs of today’s health conscious shoppers. Report highlights include:
Meeting Consumer Needs - To first understand how to deliver health and wellness with private brands, it’s important to identify the trends related to food consumption and meal patterns, along with the attributes that individuals are seeking for different meal times. Recognizing key shopper habits around meal planning, health issues and environmental concerns can help ensure success with private brand program offerings.
Regulatory Guardrails - Due to the complexity and on-going changes in the regulatory arena, it’s necessary to have access to an expert who understands the depth and breadth of food issues. In addition, all key departments that influence a private brand should be working together and not in silos. Product development, marketing, packaging design, regulatory, nutrition and merchandising need to be on the same page to minimize errors and streamline regulatory processes. This report section provides a summary of some key areas to stay updated on to ensure private brand programs stay compliant, build trust and deliver health and wellness.
Strategic Brand Positioning - The goal of strategic brand positioning is to identify and secure a marketing niche for health and wellness with private brand products. To do this retailers can
use a variety of strategies including packaging, product attributes or consumer awareness and engagement strategies. The promise, value and story brands deliver must come together with customer needs. This section discusses how products can create a unique impression in customer’s mind so they clearly identify the desirable health attributes that are distinct from other products.
Marketing, Positioning and Promotions - Communicating how private brand products deliver health and wellness goes beyond price point. The goal is to provide communication tactics that help create a dedicated following to private brands while establishing your store as a credible and reliable source of healthy products and wellness resources. This process can be achieved by implementing “educational selling” practices that deliver the information shoppers need to make informed and confident food choices. Examples and best practice applications are shared.
Future Focus - The products that shoppers desire must not only deliver nutritional benefits, but sustainability and transparency in order to maintain trust and acceptance. In addition, consumers both young and old will be seeking an enhanced experience around retail wellness that includes educational guidance and personalized lifestyle solutions in the supermarket aisles and beyond. These considerations along with digital solutions, global/ethnic opportunities and the impact of changing store formats are provided to help private brand programs successfully compete in the future health and wellness arena.
To access the full report, click here.
