The folks at Harris Teeter keep finding new ways to incorporate their nearly 3-year-old health and wellness program into new areas of outreach.
The latest move takes the chain’s “yourwellness” program right to the shelves in the form of a green check mark that’s awarded to any item that meets guidelines developed by the retailer’s health and wellness experts, Dr. Russell Greenfeld (founding director of Carolinas Integrative Health) and corporate dietitian Beth Avery.
“Only items that merit 2 or more Harris Teeter wellness keys or that might provide significant health benefits as well as unique nutritional value earn the ‘yourwellness approved’ designation,” is how they put it in a statement.
The green check mark is already at work in the most recent store circular I’m looking at, highlighting products like pasta, frozen vegetables and orange juice. Presumably, these items also sport at least two of the retailer’s wellness keys. There are 21 of those (two are shown), ranging from low sodium and sodium free to heart healthy and Good Source of Iron.
For those of us who don’t require ingredient- or nutrient-specific shelf guidance, I suppose this kind of general call-out is helpful. But it amazes me to think that there are still people out there who need a reminder that OJ and frozen vegetables are better for them than the French onion dip and frozen pizza that share the same page in the circular.