Dive Brief:

• Giant Food has launched a healthy-at-home food challenge to offer health guidance to consumers and establish a virtual connection among the community, according to a company press release.
• The four-week challenge will be free to join and will be led by Giant’s nutrition team, which consists of 11 licensed professionals. Each week, Giant will challenge the community to take on healthy habits or simple goals like trying a new vegetable, getting more physical activity or adding whole grains to a meal.
• Giant will host the campaign on its website and social media channels, and will encourage participants to share their progress with the hashtags #HealthyAtHome and #GiantFoodChallenge. People can also receive tips, recipes and other content by email.

Dive Insight:

The virtual initiative builds on Giant’s recent announcement that it will offer nutrition services online during the COVID-19 pandemic. In late April, the company said its nutritionists would launch weekly classes to help with healthy habits and offer non-urgent health care advice. 

Nutrition services have continued to grow at Giant Food in the past couple of years. In addition to having a fully-staffed nutrition team, the company has adopted the Guiding Stars nutrition labeling system to help shoppers make healthy choices at the store. The company also launched its own podcast, Nutrition Made Easy, at the beginning of 2019.

Giant said it modeled its campaign after the World Health Organization’s #HealthyAtHome challenge, which offers advice to people on healthy eating, exercise and emotional health amid the pandemic. The idea behind these campaigns is to offer community connection and group support, which research shows can increase motivation and reduce stress, Giant said. 

A variety of retailers are offering virtual services and have launched health initiatives while people are staying home. Weis Markets has partnered with telehealth platform Healthie to enable video chats between customers and in-store dietitians. Kroger is offering a variety of cooking videos on its social channels, including one with food personality Donal Skehan that guides shoppers through healthy meal prep.