Articles

Les Dames d’Escoffier is an international philanthropic organization of women leaders in the fields of food, beverage and hospitality.  While nutrition enters their discussions, the group’s primary focus is on the multifaceted foodscape.  Their annual trend report provides an array of learnings with application to retail health and wellness as detailed here.

Although the supermarket is full of healthier food choices, fresh departments are especially well positioned to provide the food selections, education and guidance consumers desire and the expertise of the Retail Dietitian must be an integral part of programming. FMI recently released their report “Best Practices and Excellence in Fresh Department Health & Wellness Programming” to provide retailers insights for implementing and executing profitable programs that meet consumer needs and features exemplary examples of initiatives at retail.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce the winners of two recent contests.  Each winner will receive a $1,000 travel stipend towards an education conference of her choosing.

I work in many different capacities within the store.  I host nutrition focused chef/dietitian cooking classes and support the pharmacy with any nutrition-related advice or questions their customers have.

Managing teams effectively means learning about the personalities of each individual and understanding what motivates them. This process can take a long time but fortunately there are tools to help you better understand employees and foster effective teamwork so you devote more time on implementing important work. Lisa Coleman, MS RD LDN, and Sarah Glunz, MS CNS LDN, have utilized the Enneagram to help them manage their teams of in-store nutritionists and shared some insights for successfully using this team management tool.

A research paper published by Nielsen in August 2016 found that 64% of the world’s population are on some form of exclusion diet. Whether a consumer changes their food habits for ethical, medical, lifestyle, or religious reasons, finding suitable food still becomes an enormous struggle. It is often immediately more expensive, and reading product labels can be time consuming and confusing. 

The most recent bi-annual salary survey conducted by the Institute of Food Technology took a deep dive into pay differences between men and women.  As IFT membership comprises many individuals working at food companies, this data can provide valuable learnings to those working in the retail sector of the food industry.

Retail Dietitians work with recipes on a daily basis, in fact, sharing recipes is one of the main ways RDNs educate shoppers on how to use products in store. While some Retail RDNs may create their own recipes, many simply try to modify existing recipes to fit the need of their consumers, retailer and perhaps program sponsors. Jackie Newgent, RDN, CDN is a Culinary Nutritionist & Award-Winning Cookbook Author and she knows what goes into creating consumer-friendly recipes. Below she shares her tips for developing and modifying recipes for demos, media and more.

"I have always loved visiting grocery stores and seeing new products on the shelves.  When I learned that dietitians were working in stores, I knew it was the position I wanted to achieve in my dietetics career."

Once you’ve determined the structure and format of your store’s employee wellness program, it’s time for the fun part – selecting the health and nutrition topics you want to teach your co-workers.