Giant Educates Consumers with New Nutrition Labels

Busy consumers facing “the daily dinner dilemma” want healthy meal choices that fit their hectic schedules and stretched food budgets. Giant Carlisle is helping its customers keep the focus on healthy beef meals with its new On-Pack Nutrition Labeling (OPNL) program for all fresh meat products.

In November 2008, Giant Carlisle partnered with the beef checkoff to add “Nutrition Facts” labels directly to its fresh meat packages. Along with the fat, cholesterol and calorie content, the labels list amounts for protein and micronutrients like zinc, iron, and B-vitamins.

Giant Carlisle tested the program in three stores before rolling out the program chain-wide to all of its 149 Giant and Martin Food Stores throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland.

According to Phil Bravo, Meat Director for Giant Carlisle, “The key goal of the program is to educate our customers on the nutritional values of fresh meat offerings so that they can make healthy choices.”

A variety of POS methods were used to spread the word to customers about the new labeling:

• Toppers and stanchion signs
• Web site inclusion
• Circular inclusion – “Healthy Ideas” column
• Full-page ad in “Healthy Ideas,” their in-store nutrition magazine
• In-store radio – once per hour for one week at all store locations
• Cooking school classes
• Cooking school brochures

Giant Carlisle also conducted training sessions with Meat Managers to familiarize associates with the labeling program.

Messaging in the retailer’s Web, radio and circular ads zeroes in on how the new nutrition labeling helps customers identify nutrient-rich foods in the meat case and reminds them that beef is a premier high-quality protein.

The chain’s efforts have paid off. Giant has received positive feedback about the new labels, as customers have reported that they like having nutritional information on beef packages.

Giant’s program is a great example of how on-pack nutrition labeling and corresponding messaging reaches customers at the meat case. Visit Nutrition Research for additional information on consumers’ positive response to nutrition labeling. Nutrition Central gives all the tools you need to implement nutrition labeling in your store.