Giant Eagle takes HBW to new heights

You can’t be all things to all people, but you can be all things to one person. That’s the opportunity Giant Eagle is grabbing with the number of ways the Pittsburgh food-and-pharmacy retailer interacts with patients. 


“Our goal is to help those within our communities live healthier, longer lives,” Dan Donovan, Giant Eagle spokesman, told Drug Store News. “We look to do this in a number of ways … [through] initiatives, such as our health and beauty care business, in-store retail health clinics and our group of skilled dietitians.”


Giant Eagle opened the first of its health-beauty-wellness pilot tests — a new wellness format that helps bridge pharmacy and a more natural, wellness-oriented front-end — in 2009. That department, which boasts its own entrance and is opposite pharmacy, better positions the grocer as a preventive health resource.


Giant Eagle’s team of dietitians is headed by corporate nutritionist Judy Dodd — her group is responsible for answering any food and nutrition questions that one of Giant Eagle’s 3.8 million Giant Eagle Advantage cardholders may have.


In addition to boosting the mix of services available at Giant Eagle these days, the grocer also remains highly competitive on generic medication offerings. “It is also important that we continue to deliver great value to our customers, both with offerings, such as our $4 generic prescription program and our free antibiotic and diabetes medication initiatives, as well as by offering popular Fuelperks! rewards on many qualifying prescriptions,” Donovan said. In the summer of 2010, Giant Eagle began offering five commonly prescribed medications for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes — glimepiride, glipizide, glyburide, metformin and chlorpropamide — at no cost to patients. For that, the grocer was recognized by the American Diabetes Association with that organization’s Chairman’s Citation Award. Giant Eagle is the second recipient of the award.