Industry experts discuss health-conscious consumers

Thursday morning started on a high note as a panel of industry experts from both the retail and manufacturing side of the grocery industry engaged in a discussion on meeting the needs of today’s health-conscious consumer. The PepsiCo-sponsored panel, moderated by Phil Lempert of The Supermarket Guru, comprised of Natalia Menza of Wakefern Food Corp., Kate Rogers of H-E-B, Juli Hermanson of General Mills, Wendy Bazilian of Bazilian, Inc. and Leah McGrath of Ingles Markets.

“I think as part of our program, we see a real value in our retail dietitian program connecting with our retail pharmacists because, at the store level, there is a natural health connection between these two health professionals. So, we do a lot of work around partnerships in stores with our retail dietician and our retail pharmacist to execute programs like health screenings or diabetes education classes,” Menza said.