Retailer sets the bar high for healthy eating

At Kroger, shoppers have access to many resources to help them safeguard and improve their health.

For example, the Kroger app offers nutrition scores for foods and makes suggestions for healthier alternatives. Many Kroger pharmacies offer convenient onsite clinics, where physicians' assistants and nurse practitioners can treat minor illnesses. And some stores even have registered dietitians onsite to answer questions from shoppers about good nutritional choices. Otherwise, dietitian services are available through telehealth.

These offerings – part of Kroger Health, the health care arm of Kroger Co. – earned The Kroger Co. an Award of Meritorious Achievement from the American Heart Association. Kroger will be honored May 2 during the AHA's online National Volunteer Awards ceremony, which begins at 6 p.m. CDT and is open for public viewing.

Kroger received the recognition for its efforts to educate and empower customers to look at how their food choices impact their health, and help reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The company also has generously supported the association. In September 2023, Kroger donated $5 million to the association's Health Care by Food initiative (first known as Food is Medicine).

"We are working on food as medicine and how can we incorporate prevention," said Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health and board member of the American Heart Association's Cincinnati chapter. "What can people do with changing their diet, either leading to prevention of chronic disease or better management of it? This is really important – not only for quality of life with people, but for total cost of care reduction."

Rodney McMullen, Kroger chief executive officer, agreed. He was recently honored at the Cincinnati Heart Ball for community impact and for his personal passion for the AHA mission.

"Kroger has a bold goal to change the way America eats," said McMullen, who worked as a stockboy at Kroger during college and fell in love with the business. "Every day, we see customers and patients who could radically improve their heart health with a few simple changes to their diet. We believe by increasing access to fresh food as well as the resources patients need to make heart-healthier decisions, our associates are saving lives."

American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown applauded McMullen's dedication to the association's CEO Roundtable, a leadership collaborative dedicated to improving employee and community health through evidence-based solutions.

"As an influential leader for a major U.S. retailer, Rodney is an incredible champion for workplace and community health," Brown said. "He is genuinely interested in the pursuit of better health for all, and puts this commitment into action."

Lindholz said that Kroger wants to maximize prevention programs and make nutrition knowledge and help easily accessible to shoppers.

"I think we can make a major difference, especially in our relationship with the AHA, meeting people where they are," she said.

One particularly helpful Kroger program is the OptUP scoring system of food items. Groceries are rated green, yellow or red, like traffic lights. Green means the food is good, healthy and nutritious – like fresh fruits and vegetables - so customers can go ahead and buy with confidence.

Yellow foods are a mix of healthy and less healthy elements, like many dairy foods. Red foods – like processed snack foods – have the lowest nutritional value.

"We know that nobody's cart is going to be completely green all the time," Lindholz said. "But we want people to understand the balance of what their cart looks like.

"We recognize the impact of diet, and how powerful it can be when people can make better choices, easier choices," she said.