How wholesalers and retailers can increase sales of healthy products

Learnings from the pilot

Through the pilot we learnt:

• It is possible to influence the healthiness of retailer buying habits. The volume sales of the healthier choices range increased by 17.7%.
• It is possible to position health at the heart of the existing offer.
• The key tactics of pricing, promotion, availability, and merchandising, have the biggest impact when used in combination. For example, when combining these tactics, sales volumes of Alpro products increased by 21% and sales volumes of Graze products increased by 170%.
• Impactful trials can be simple and sustainable. The video below captures the positive impact this had on attitudes and sales.

The report details the approach and the preliminary results from the interventions launched by Bestway, showing the positive impact of the pilot for retailers and consumers, as well as a positive financial impact on business.

What’s next?

The trial has allowed us to gain more insight into retailer behaviour and the effective ways to engage with wholesalers; helping us understand the levers and communication required for success.

Our aim for the next phase, which is co-funded by Southwark Council, is to improve the food sold in independent convenience stores. We will expand the approach to 40 stores across Southwark that have been identified as operating in areas of higher deprivation, to make the case for the commercial benefit of increasing the number of healthy options stocked in these stores.

We will test a range of levers, from promotion to merchandising, to increase the number of healthier products stocked and sold locally. Through this next phase we want to continue to show that promoting health is not just good for people, but also good for profit.

We will also support wholesalers to increase the proportion of their sales from healthier products into local convenience stores, by working with two further wholesalers and using the learnings from the pilot to help make health considerations part of their business planning.

Rice Marketing will lead an engagement piece with major suppliers and wholesalers at a national level to start putting health at the heart of national strategies. We have kicked off this next phase of work with support from The Federation of Wholesale Distributors, Unitas and Sustain and aim to launch an industry roundtable in April 2020 bringing leading wholesalers and suppliers together to discuss developing practical solutions to providing healthier foods to our communities.  The aim is that this roundtable will evolve into an industry taskforce who will take these plans forward and lead the sector with a vision for a healthier future.