Canterbury DHB and Progressive Supermarkets

The HEHA team at Canterbury DHB have signed up Fresh Choice and Super Value supermarkets to promote healthy food choices.

Alison Beck, HEHA Communications Manager in Canterbury, says the relationship is of key strategic importance to the DHB. “We have the best chance of changing consumer habits if we communicate with them at a time when they are most receptive.

Delivering messages about healthy food choices just before a consumer starts their shopping is far more likely to be effective than hearing a radio advert at 10pm in the evening. Whether we like it or not, supermarkets have a key role to play in influencing the nutrition habits of our consumers, so working collaboratively with them is a critical part of our plans."

The CDHB relationship with Progressive Enterprises focuses on the Fresh Choice and Super Value brands, both of which are mainly South Island chains. Alison says “From a strategic perspective, the Super Value brand is a perfect fit with the HEHA strategy, as it is a community store often found in low socio economic neighbourhoods. Fresh Choice is also important, but any activities we carry out in these stores tend to be slightly more focussed on quality and less on value propositions”.

The relationship began in January 2008 with a Healthy Lunchbox promotion in Fresh Choice. The activity included a full page in the Fresh Choice flyer, which is delivered free to 200,000 homes, and was backed up with posters and A6 handouts of the lunchbox options in all Fresh Choice stores. The activity was timed to coincide with the start of the school year, and to complement national advertising from Feeding our Futures.

The Healthy Lunchbox promotion was so well received by consumers and store owners that a Winter version was produced.

Other collaborative activities between the CDHB and Progressive include Souperlicious, healthy soup recipes from the mum’s of local celebrities which featured in the Super Value mailer during the 5 weeks following Mother’s Day. A series of Healthy Meal Solutions is also in the pipeline for Super Value, along with a regular healthy eating tip in each edition of the flyer.

An eighteen month agreement has now been signed between the two parties, which includes a draft activity plan.

“We try to co-ordinate our activities with national events wherever possible, so the activity plan is fairly fluid” says Alison. “We are pushing after-school snacks in August  and we will run physical activity competitions in November”.

The next step is to contact other supermarket companies such as Foodstuffs and develop similar plans.