Personalized health programs enter US supermarkets: from nutrition centers to digital tools

U.S. grocery chain Heinen's recently opened a clinic inside its store in Mayfield Village, Ohio, which the company believes could be the future of health coaching in a retail setting. But first, it needs customers to be willing to walk in.

The clinic, called the Center for Personalized Nutrition, began operating in January and looks like a typical in-store clinic or doctor's office. However, it does not treat colds or give flu shots; instead, it offers dietary consultations and can determine each person's personalized nutritional needs through diagnostic testing.

The testing includes blood and urine tests that reveal key health indicators in the immune, digestive, and cardiovascular systems, helping clinic staff tailor dietary advice as well as supplement and vitamin infusion plans. The clinic is overseen by VitalHealth Partners, a medical organization run by Heinen's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Todd Pesek, who also developed this proprietary test, which costs $300.

For Pesek and Heinen's Chief Innovation Officer Chris Foltz, offering a medical-grade nutrition clinic just steps from the sales floor, where customers can buy the foods they need for their dietary plans, makes perfect sense. But they also acknowledge that consumers may not yet be ready to have blood drawn where they buy their fruit and cereal.

Foltz said the center initially had only a few visits per week. Registrations have recently increased following a promotional push by Heinen's, including coverage by local TV stations. According to Heinen's project manager Jamie Cole, the Center for Personalized Nutrition now sees 30 to 40 customers per week using one or more of its services.

"We face a high bar of credibility," Foltz said.

Still, as the medical community increasingly focuses on preventive health and the role of food as medicine, Heinen's appears to be moving in the right direction.

While medically tailored diets may be new to the grocery industry, health companies are developing personalized diet systems based on metrics such as an individual's digestive system composition. These "precision nutrition" programs often incorporate artificial intelligence and follow the concept that food interacts uniquely with the body, achieving mixed success so far, but researchers are delving deeper into its possibilities. Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health announced it would invest $170 million in a study to "develop algorithms to predict individual responses to food and dietary routines."

Personalized health goes mainstream

Setting aside cutting-edge science, Pesek said consumers are becoming increasingly familiar with how dietary choices affect health. And grocers have strengthened this connection through resources such as dietitian consultations, nutrition labeling programs, healthy recipe recommendations, and produce prescriptions.

Now, grocers are taking the next step by launching personalized health tools that offer customized food scoring and dietary guidance, integrated with their digital platforms. These programs have not yet reached the depth of Heinen's Mayfield Village system, but they take a personalized approach aimed at boosting loyalty and making health coaching more engaging.

In January, Schnuck Markets launched a program called "Good For You" that counts healthy products on members' purchase receipts, suggests practical product substitutions, and offers members discounts on products. The system includes more than 5,000 products identified as healthy choices by Schnucks and its technology partner, UK-based Spoon Guru.

Currently, Good For You focuses on encouraging members to eat healthily and informing them about which products are considered healthier choices. This approach aims to provide customers with clearer guidance than the health marketing programs Schnucks used in the past, such as offering labels to identify items that meet various diets and lifestyles. Allison Primo, Schnucks' manager of health and wellness strategy, said this also helps Schnucks collect valuable data on health-conscious consumers, which is used to send personalized offers, improve product displays, and manage other aspects of the business.

"Having this group of customers who self-identify as healthy or want to become healthy gives us a lot of opportunities to target them precisely and provide more personalized information about what our company is doing," Primo said.

Primo said that within the first three months of the program's launch, more than 15,000 customers had signed up for Good For You, and it is on track to reach its goal of 50,000 registrations by September. She revealed that Schnucks has recently placed shelf tags indicating Good For You products and plans to promote the program this spring through in-store signage and digital promotions to boost registrations.

In the future, Primo said the program could personalize messages based on users' dietary needs. She is also considering "gamification" by offering extra loyalty points, digital badges, and other incentives.

"It's like taking something that seems burdensome like health, trying to break down barriers, while also making it fun," Primo said.

Markus Stripf, co-founder of Spoon Guru, said his company (which also serves UK's Tesco and Australia's Woolworths) uses artificial intelligence to help shoppers find healthy products they like, track progress, and push useful resources like recipes. The approach focuses on curation, transparency, and gamification, but Stripf said the company is also thinking about how to personalize diets and health plans.

He noted that although retailers have invested for years in dietitians to provide personalized guidance to consumers, they have struggled to scale these programs. Some retailers, such as Kroger and Hy-Vee, offer telehealth appointments with dietitians.

"I can definitely foresee a world where a retail dietitian helps you truly understand your personal dietary needs and then gives you a digital tool, whether it's an app that scans barcodes or a web-based program, that allows you to stick to your diet," Stripf said.

Niemann Foods, which owns the Midwest County Market supermarket chain, offers an app called LiveWell that shoppers can use to scan barcodes with their phones and see a personalized score for that item based on the health information they provide, such as dietary goals and restrictions. The app recommends product substitutions and recipes and offers digital coupons for healthy items.

Kroger is also venturing into personalized health. Company executives have publicly discussed the key role of store grocery departments and pharmacies in helping prevent and treat conditions like diabetes.

In 2018, Kroger launched OptUp, an app-based nutrition rating system that gives each product a health score from 1 to 100. The system provides users with an overall score and, based on that score, offers supplemental information or "nutrition insights."

In 2020, the grocer tested a program that connected diabetic patients with Kroger dietitians, who wrote "food prescriptions" based on doctor recommendations. Kroger now refers to its OptUp program and dietitian consultations as a "food as medicine" approach and recently published a study touting the benefits of this method.

Heinen's seeks to expand its 'future pharmacy'

Gary Hawkins, founder and CEO of the Center for Advancing Retail & Technology, said that for retailers, the most valuable asset of these digital health programs right now is the consumer data they generate, which can be monetized and used to guide product assortments.

Looking ahead, he said the medical community's focus on preventive health and the role of food will only strengthen in the coming years. This offers retailers more opportunities to develop programs that reinforce this connection and leverage advances in medicine and digital technology to personalize their approach. Meanwhile, grocers that operate pharmacies can link these facilities to their efforts, serving as entry points for consumers, supplementary resources, or both.

Hawkins said grocers could eventually partner with health insurance companies, which could offer incentives for consumers who follow these programs and take other preventive health measures centered on the store.

"I think this will move toward a closer integration of food and healthcare, and I absolutely believe we will see healthcare providers and managed care organizations offering incentives to encourage people to eat better," Hawkins said.

Grocers could also partner with corporate employers seeking to improve employee benefit plans and control insurance costs through preventive health measures. That is the direction Heinen's is targeting with its personalized nutrition program. The grocer has held talks with local companies and recently signed its first client—a local manufacturer that will pay for health testing for interested employees and provide nutritional counseling with Heinen's dietitians.

Foltz calls the grocer's personalized nutrition center the "future pharmacy" and sees it as part of a broader health ecosystem that engages consumers, employers, and evolving product selections. The center is linked to the company's recently launched health membership program Club Fx, which identifies healthy products, offers product discounts, and provides weekly health tips via email. Club Fx branded products are beginning to appear on shelves, including new prepared meals Heinen's is test-marketing in several stores.

Cole said that since its launch early last year, Heinen's has registered 41,500 shoppers for Club Fx across its 23 stores.

Foltz believes Heinen's has an opportunity to become a health destination for shoppers, not just a grocery store. But he acknowledges it will be difficult to convince people that this is possible, or even to follow a personalized dietary plan. Foltz also noted that the company is swimming against the current, contrary to the mainstream practices of today's doctors and other medical professionals, who focus on prescribing medications for various conditions while offering light guidance around preventive measures like diet and exercise.

"This goes further than what most medical practitioners currently do," he said. "So the challenge is achieving effective collaboration."

Heinen's will evaluate the center over the next year or so before deciding whether to expand it to other stores. He expects the center will never be profitable but hopes it will help boost store sales and customer loyalty.

Heinen's Chief Medical Officer Pesek said the company's personalized nutrition approach is trying to add depth and clarity to the grocer's ongoing health mission.

"Everyone knows they need to eat healthier. But how do you do it most easily and benefit the most? That's what this program does. It adds depth and authenticity, and it also enables people to take a very precise, personalized approach," he said.