Retail Dietitians Set the Table for National Family Meals Month™
2017 marks the third annual National Family Meals Month™ (NFMM) celebrated each September. This annual event is supported by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) Foundation to encourage one more family meal, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, at home each week. This year more than 108 retailers, suppliers and community collaborators participated in the campaign.
Food industry participation in NFMM not only contributes to the health and social benefit of families eating together, it has also served as an opportunity for retail dietitians to take center stage in implementing these programs in their companies. Here are a few examples:
- At Wegmans, Krystal Register, MS RDN, LDN served as a spokesperson and in numerous news broadcasts offered up her top suggestions for simplifying family meals including using their Family Pack prepared foods, getting the kids involved with meal preparation and using the Wegmans app to keep shopping lists up to date.
- Festival Foods, dietitians Lauren Tulig and Emily Schwartz are featured as Mealtime Mentors and for National Family Meals Month they put together $10 meal ideas along with how-to videos to help busy families make family meals affordable.
- Kroger Dietitians hosted supermarket tours called “Walk and Talks.” Each had a different theme, such as “Game Day Recipes” and “Healthy Beef?” They also had a Family Meals with Whole Grains class and an Easy Family Meal recipe give-away.
- Food City registered dietitian, Elizabeth Hall did a number of local television spots demonstrating easy, healthy family meals and promoting their new online order program, “Ready, Set, Cook.”
The FMI Foundation wants to recognize all the excellent programs that celebrated National Family Meals month in September 2017. We invite you to nominate your company for the Gold Plate Award, which will highlight the outstanding programs implemented by retailers, wholesalers, suppliers, and community collaborators. Applications are due by October 31, 2017 and will be announced at FMI’s Midwinter Executive Conference on January 29, 2018.
