Shoppers are focused on health and wellness more than ever, and they are more distrustful of the claims on packaging than ever. Syndigo’s webinar, Beyond the Package: Turning Wellness Data into Better Product Discovery, looked at how retailers use wellness claims to help shoppers find products that fit how they want to eat. Here are three takeaways for retailers building a health and wellness program.
Where shoppers are skeptical, there’s an opportunity to build trust
GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro have dramatically reshaped the purchasing habits of many consumers. According to Syndigo, about 23% of US households contain at least one GLP-1 user, and that share is projected to reach as high as 35% by 2030. Nearly half of GLP-1 users report looking more closely at nutrition facts panels after they start taking the medication. Shoppers are also willing to spend more on a product they perceive as meeting their health and wellness standards.
At the same time, shoppers distrust health and wellness claims on packaging more than ever. US food labeling doesn’t always feel clear. The Guiding Stars team at Ahold Delhaize offered an example: fat-free on a licorice package is helpful, but it doesn’t tell the whole story, and it breeds skepticism.
Where there is confusion, there’s also an opportunity to build trust and loyalty around your retail brand. Shoppers do trust their food retailer, and the grocery store remains a community hub and a key part of a shopper’s health journey. A well-deployed program using verified claims and third-party support can build trust, increase cart value, and build loyalty.
Start with about five wellness claims, then choose where shoppers see them
Syndigo has more than 160 validated wellness claims, built over the last eight years. They fall into five categories:
- Nutrition claims: excellent source of, good source of, calorie free.
- Lifestyle claims: keto, plant-based.
- Ingredient claims: artificial colors, high fructose corn syrup.
- Allergen claims: the top nine US allergens.
- Sustainability claims: non-GMO, fair trade.
Some are on-pack claims, such as certified gluten free or USDA organic, which depend on the manufacturer’s labeling. Others are derived claims, such as vegetarian or good source of iron, which Syndigo’s wellness engine works out from the nutrition panel, ingredient statement, allergens, and other on-pack claims. Syndigo also assigns relevancy and priority by product category, which helps where space is limited, such as shelf tags.
With that many claims, where do you begin? Syndigo’s advice is to start small. Most retailers do best starting with about five claims. This lets shoppers process new information without being overwhelmed, gives you time to refine your messaging, and lets you test which attributes matter to your communities before making a bigger investment.
Wellness programs are a key example of the 80/20 rule. Most major retailers have an assortment roughly 80% similar to their competitors’. Wellness claims are where you can differentiate yourself and broaden your appeal to part of the remaining 20%. The trick is to be authentic and know the shopper you’re trying to attract. You don’t need a big team: even without in-house dietitians, you can build a strong program if you understand the attributes your community values.
Once you’ve picked your first set, consider where it shows up. The digital shelf is one of the most flexible channels: you can create filtering experiences, build digital shelves around a lifestyle or dietary need, and measure feedback quickly through online sales, all without affecting the physical store. The store aisle is next, with in-store marketing, shelf planning for specific diets, and shelf tags that carry wellness claims.
Give shoppers the reasoning behind your claims
According to Syndigo, the key to an effective in-store offering is to keep it approachable and factual, and to give shoppers the reasoning behind your wellness claims. Once shoppers trust your logic, they’ll use you as shorthand to make buying easier and look to you as their first stop for groceries.
Guiding Stars, which Hannaford Supermarkets created and launched in 2006, puts that into practice at Ahold Delhaize. It exists because consumers feel overwhelmed by the number of decisions they make while shopping. The program uses data from Syndigo, primarily the nutrition facts label and ingredient statement, plus some on-pack claims. Products that earn a rating show one, two, or three stars, indicating good, better, and best nutrition, on the unit price portion of the shelf tag. A product that doesn’t meet the criteria for one star gets no communication, so the program only identifies better-for-you options.
Transparency is a cornerstone of Guiding Stars. Anyone can see detailed scoring at the UPC level at food.guidingstars.com, and the white paper on its website explains the criteria and levels. The team said data integrity and transparency are critical, including clarity about how you source data and communicate guidance, because saying there’s nothing to see behind the curtain limits trust. People want to know you’re upfront about how a product is evaluated, so the scores make sense when they see them.
Independent researchers who compared sales before and after Guiding Stars appeared on shelves found a statistically significant shift in consumer choices toward products with higher scores. When the program launched at Loblaw in Canada, the research was replicated and found the same results.
