Help Your Heart Tour & Tasting

Origins:

Alberstons Companies Wellness Services partnered with cardiac rehab and heart health programs in 2019 in 5 regions, by offering a Help Your Heart Tour & Tasting as part of their on-going programs. At no cost, their patients attend this tour & tasting at one of our stores. The tour included a 10-minute introduction with one of our pharmacists, a 45-minute tour in the aisles with one of our network dietitians, and a 20-minute tasting with the dietitian. Three dishes from the tour guide are sampled plus there is an active station where a recipe is prepared live!

Contribution:

21 tours were completed in 2019 through sponsorship with Nature Made. The sponsorship covered tour guide printing, grocery costs and compensation for the network dietitians who conducted the tours. Albertsons Companies covered the in kind contributions by the store pharmacists who participated and the Wellness Corporate Dietitian (Elaine Magee, MPH, RD) who developed the tour guide and directed the program/tours. NOTE: The Corporate Dietitian also reached out to the Produce for Better Health Foundation and we included PBH messaging in our tours and our dietitians wore their "Have A Plant" T-shirt while conducting the tours & tastings.

Objectives:

The Wellness Corporate Dietitian created this community outreach program to pilot the effectiveness of attaching an in-store service (in this case our Help Your Heart Tour and Tasting) to an on-going community program. The Corporate Dietitian reached out to cardiac rehab and heart health hospital programs in 5 regions (Las Vegas, Phoenix area, Chicago Land, Orange County, Boise/Meridian). Several partnerships were formed in each of these regions and over a 5-month period, over 21 tours were completed. 100% of our community partners wanted to continue attending these tours in our stores.

Impact:

• Albertsons Companies completed over 20 tours in 2019 and each tour included between 6 and 18 participants (many were around 15 participants). 
• 100% of the participants said they enjoyed the tour and tasting and found it helpful.
• 89% said they were more aware of the various pharmacy services Albertsons Companies provides after attending the tour.
• 100% of our community partners wanted to continue our partnership by including our tour in their on-going heart health and cardiac rehab programs.

Quote:

Geoff White, EVP Chief Merchandising Officer—"At Albertsons Companies, our team is always working hard to delight customers with experiences that make shopping easy, exciting, friendly and safe, and our Help Your Heart Tour and Tasting delivers. This innovative, scalable program brings together our pharmacists and dieticians with local cardiac rehab and heart health organizations and their patients to offer practical advice for being well and staying healthy by leveraging our local pharmacy teams as well as great recipes for delicious meals from our registered dietitians.”

Julie Walker, RD, Program Director, Boise--"St. Luke’s Humphreys Diabetes Center partnered with Albertsons to provide Heart Healthy supermarket tours for participants with diabetes attending our 4 part diabetes self-management class series. The supermarket tours were scheduled between classes 3 and 4 of the series. When participants returned for class 4, they were ecstatic and raved about the supermarket tours. They were very well organized and participants stated they were fun, interactive and very informative. We really felt like this hands on experience in the supermarket was a great adjunct to our diabetes education classes." 

Mary Gardner, RD, LDN, Outpatient Dietitian, Edward-Elmhurst Health, Naperville, IL—"The Tour and Tasting was a great addition to the Lifestyle Under Construction Program at Edward-Elmhurst Health in Napervillle, IL. The Registered Dietitian was very knowledgeable and went aisle by aisle reviewing products and helping our patients understand label reading and finding the best products to fit their healthy lifestyles. The samples and recipe book at the end were an added bonus as it encouraged the participants to be more involved in their food preparation at home.”

John N. Frank, President, North Suburban Mended Hearts Chapter 424, Evanston, Il.--“The Help Your Heart Tour & Tasting Pilot program allowed us to twice tour a local Jewel supermarket with a nutritionist and pharmacist who helped our members understand in a real-world setting how to find foods that would be both heart-healthy and tasty for them. Adjusting our diets when heart disease hits is one of the major hurdles every heart patient faces. This program helped us turn heart-healthy eating theories into realities we could use to enhance our quality of life.”

Support Statement:

Julie Walker, RD, Program Director, Boise--"St. Luke’s Humphreys Diabetes Center partnered with Albertsons to provide Heart Healthy supermarket tours for participants with diabetes attending our 4 part diabetes self-management class series. The supermarket tours were scheduled between classes 3 and 4 of the series. When participants returned for class 4, they were ecstatic and raved about the supermarket tours. They were very well organized and participants stated they were fun, interactive and very informative. We really felt like this hands on experience in the supermarket was a great adjunct to our diabetes education classes."

Mary Gardner, RD, LDN, Outpatient Dietitian, Edward-Elmhurst Health, Naperville, IL—"The Tour and Tasting was a great addition to the Lifestyle Under Construction Program at Edward-Elmhurst Health in Napervillle, IL. The Registered Dietitian was very knowledgeable and went aisle by aisle reviewing products and helping our patients understand label reading and finding the best products to fit their healthy lifestyles. The samples and recipe book at the end were an added bonus as it encouraged the participants to be more involved in their food preparation at home.”