Greetings, Summer and fall have been busy, but I am working on the presentation for Meijer in which I lay out the reasons why and ideas for having a healthy checkout aisle pilot at Meijer. Once complete, I'll send the presentation to Frank Guglielmi, Meijer's Senior Director of Communications, and hope that he shares it with the merchandising team as promised. In the meantime, Center for Science in the Public Interest published some interesting statistics this summer related to a survey they did through Caravan ORC International in December 1-4, 2016. They polled 1,024 adults on Consumer Perceptions of Retail Checkout. Below are some of the results - which aren't at all surprising. Nearly all respondents (93%) believe that the availability of affordable, healthy food in supermarkets is important to Americans’ health. • 73% said that the presence of unhealthy food and soda in supermarkets and convenience stores is a problem for Americans’ health. 76% of shoppers who purchased a food or beverage item at checkout felt regret after doing so. • Half (51%) of adults purchased candy or soda at checkout recently. Checkout merchandising unfairly targets low-income and minority shoppers. • People earning less than $35,000 per year were more likely to say they make impulse buys once a month or more (62%) than those with incomes above $50,000 ($50,000-$75,000 = 52%; $75,000-$100,000 = 41%; $100,000+ = 40%) • Black respondents (72%) were more likely to report making impulse buys at checkout once a month or more than Latino (57%) or White (48%) respondents. The majority of respondents (79%) think that supermarkets should do more to make it easier for people to eat healthfully. • Half of people (55%) think that supermarkets put the interests of food manufacturers before the interests of shoppers, 15% think supermarkets put shoppers’ interests first, and 30% think they treat shoppers’ and food manufacturers’ interests the same. Parents want stores to make it easier to grocery shop with children. • 75% said that it is hard for parents to shop with children at grocery stores because there is so much junk food. • 86% said that characters on food packages, toys that come in cereals, CANDY AT CHECKOUT, and other in-store promotions result in conflict between parents and children. • 80% of parents said they would regularly use healthy checkout aisles, if stores offered them! This is why stores like Lidl, Aldi, Tesco, Target, Harmon's, Raley's, CVS, HyVee, SpartanNash, Northgate González Markets, Associated Food Stores, and a slew of others (who've partnered with local health departments) already have their own versions of healthy checkouts and in many cases are expanding them! They all GET it! Actually, Tesco got it back in 1994 when they removed all the sweets and chocolates from checkout. 1994! I have no doubt that Meijer will eventually catch up - at the very least with a healthy checkout pilot! How could they not?! Let's just hope it's sooner rather than later. Meijer has to make its mark now or we'll have to wonder why it allowed itself to get left in the dust. Respectfully, Jane Kramer