Special Reports Archive

Not many retail companies would give their customers a vote on how they design their new stores. It’s just one of many ways that H-E-B works to cultivate millions of loyal consumers.

If you ask executives at Food City, it’s part of the role of a supermarket pharmacy operator to help its customers understand how healthy eating plays into overall health and wellness. It’s a responsibility they take pretty seriously.

In an effort to deliver to shoppers a whole health-focused shopping experience, Supervalu’s pharmacy and grocery teams are working closely together to develop innovative service offerings that cut across three platforms: preventive care, diabetes care and medication therapy management. The chain clearly is demonstrating its focus on being a one-stop health solution for its shoppers.

Nothing shows a retailer that its revitalization efforts are working quite like a thumbs-up from customers. For Winn-Dixie Stores, that vote of confidence came in mid-February, when its pharmacy business was among 40 U.S. companies honored as 2011 “customer service champions” by J.D. Power and Associates.

One supermarket operator is literally driving customers to its pharmacies.

Customers at Royal Ahold’s Giant-Landover stores can earn one Gas Rewards point for every dollar spent on purchases in Giant pharmacies in Maryland, most of Virginia, Delaware and Washington, D.C. With the program, for example, a $20 pharmaceutical co-pay earns 20 points and a $50 pharmacy purchase earns 50 points. For every 100 Gas Rewards points earned, shoppers save 10 cents off every gallon of gas bought at Giant and participating Shell gas stations.

Harris Teeter describes itself as “not just a grocery store,” but also “a wellness center.” The Matthews, N.C.-based supermarket retailer has taken big steps to provide a broader-than-usual menu of services that blend its pharmacy assets with its growing reach as a source of nutritional expertise.

The nation’s largest supermarket chain wants a bigger share of the U.S. pharmacy and wellness market. To get it, Kroger is brandishing a growing arsenal of health and preventive services, and burnishing its image for value and convenience at the prescription counter.

Over the past seven years, Safeway has demonstrated a list of accomplishments aimed at healthier living, including launching its O Organics line of USDA certified-organic foods, removing added trans-fats from all of its private-label products and launching Eating Right for Kids, a line that contains no high fructose corn syrup. Today, the effort shows little signs of slowing as the chain kicked off 2011 with two new initiatives: SimpleNutrition and Open Nature.