Hy-Vee Adds FoodHealth Score To Store Shelves

Midwestern grocery retailer Hy-Vee has debuted a new partnership with nutrition intelligence platform FoodHealth Company (formerly Bitewell), becoming the first retailer to bring the color-coded, numerical nutritional score directly to products sold in-store across its 300 location footprint in addition to online.

“The FoodHealth Score is a valuable tool that helps consumers easily identify better-for-you options while shopping at Hy-Vee,” said Dawn Buzynski, a spokesperson for Hy-Vee, in an email to Nosh. “Utilizing a transparent, science-based algorithm, each food product is scored by the FoodHealth Company from 1 to 100 based on ingredient quality and nutrient density, with higher scores indicating greater nutritional value.”

The partnership will bring nutrition scores to the forefront of every product purchased at Hy-Vee; online, the score is listed next to the product’s price, and shelf tags or physical stickers will display corresponding product results in-store. Online users will also be able to easily view higher-scoring alternative products directly below a product’s listing, enabling them to increase the overall nutrition score of their cart while they shop.

“Today, consumers are becoming more selective about their purchases, prioritizing not only convenience but also nutrition,” Buzynski said. “The FoodHealth Company’s FoodHealth Scores provide a new level of product transparency that can help guide consumers who are seeking more nutrient-rich products.”

FoodHealth Score analyzes nutrient density and ingredient quality against a methodology that “synthesizes principles from the Mediterranean Diet” as well as the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, according to its website. The algorithm bases the score on an assessment of “nutrients per calorie,” in order to account for product-to-product variability in “serving size, energy density and water content.”

By placing this information directly on the shelf, or next to the product’s price online, FoodHealth Co. has circumvented hurdles associated with the use of QR codes, which have traditionally been used to supplement access to nutrition information on the shelf.

In June, FoodHealth Co, partnered with NielsenIQ to integrate its nutrition scoring system alongside the market researcher’s suite of sales data. Now, when a retailer purchases nutrition data through that partnership, Nielsen will handle the execution of presenting that data via shelf tags and online.

Food Health Co. founder and CEO Sam Criti Alexander told Nosh at the time of that partnership that the company believes the integration of nutrition scores alongside retail sales data will have a significant impact on the grocery industry, influencing everything from pricing and production formations to what brands get on-shelf placement.

Retailers including Kroger and the majority of its banners already display the score online in the grocer’s app; the partnership with Hy-Vee brings this information close to the point of purchase and additional retailers will be rolling out the score in the next six months, FoodHealth Co. claims.