Podcast Episode 226: Convenience Store Nutrition: Insights, Strategy & Innovation – LeeAnn Kindness

Convenience Store Nutrition: Making Progress in the Food Environment

Convenience stores serve many communities and can often be a key source of food for families. Consumer insights show that shoppers are looking for foods that taste great and are also convenient and affordable. By leveraging nutrition experts in strategy, policy, innovations and communications, C-stores can make a positive impact on the food environment. Offering a variety of choices that include healthier options while keeping flavor as a priority is one key strategy that is generating results.

Convenience stores serve many communities and can be a key source of food for families. There’s an opportunity for nutrition professionals to help drive their offerings and make improvements in the food environment.” – LeeAnn Kindness

Tune into this episode to learn about:

• Why C-stores can and should offer better-for-you options
• How C-stores are leveraging nutrition experts to combine science and insights to make progress in the food environment
• How consumer insights are driving product innovation and food policy
• How food policy and nutrition strategy play a role in C-stores product mix and menu development
• How food policy relates to product development, innovation, reformulation and discontinuations
• How C-stores can help make the healthier choices easier – choices that are convenient, tasty and affordable
• The role of the nutrition expert in communicating effectively both internally and externally
• The importance of nutrition messaging – communications, claims, label laws/regulatory, point of purchase
• Trends in the retail setting including rising food costs, food deserts and more
• Advice for nutrition professionals interested in retail career opportunities
• How “leaning into” taste is a key strategy and that slow reductions in ingredients such as sodium or sugar can net big results
• Wawa’s “Good to Choose” initiative focused on balanced choices, clean choices, sustainable choices

Taste and convenience are consistently rated at the top of the list for why people choose the foods they do. Just because a healthy option is on the menu, doesn’t mean someone will buy it. So how do you apply simple nudges into your product development? What if we can take steps to ensure there are healthy choices, that are also convenient, affordable and taste good?” – LeeAnn Kindness

LeeAnn Kindness, MS, NDTR

With a unique background, LeeAnn has combined a Master’s in Nutrition with over a decade of marketing experience as the Nutritionist for the Product Development and Innovation team at Wawa – an East Coast convenience store chain best known for their hoagies, gobblers, and coffee. Previously, LeeAnn spent 13 years building an ecommerce business and driving marketing efforts for a Philadelphia based jeweler. After receiving her Master’s in Nutrition from Drexel University, she went on to work in product development and R&D for Nutrisystem.

Resources

• Twitter
• Wawa
• Your Way Menus
• What’s New in Quality Food Commitment

Related Posts

• Podcast Episode 217: Rising Food Costs & Supermarket Solutions – Krystal Register
• Podcast Episode 222: Food Packaging: Recycling, Sustainability & Innovations – Dr. David Smith
• Podcast Episode 099: The Supermarket ‘Shopportunity’ for Dietitians and Consumers – Shari Steinbach

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Music by Dave Birk

Produced by JAG in Detroit Podcasts

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