Supermarkets offer an almost bewildering choice of products. Since April, Woodbury-based grocer Kowalski’s Markets tells customers which food choices best support specific aspects of their health.
Kowalski’s has rolled out the program, called Good Foods for Good Health, during the chain’s celebration of its 25th year in business. Coordinated by St. Paul dietician Susan Moores, the initiative will focus on one specific aspect of health each quarter, beginning with bone health and moving on to joint, heart, and brain health.
Throughout the stores, banners announce the program and its current quarterly health focus; red “Good Foods for Good Health” tags are affixed to foods that fit that focus. Kowalski’s Web site and magazine also feature program information, including recipes and meal suggestions.
Noting that nutritional advice often focuses on what people should not eat, particularly if they have a health concern, Moores says that the Kowalski’s program is trying to expand customers’ culinary horizons. “There are certainly some foods that are better for us than others, but I hope this will open people’s eyes to new possibilities,” she adds. “This is a celebratory, fun, positive look at what foods can do for your health. It’s not about doom and gloom.”
Though Kowalski’s hopes to guide its customers’ eating habits, the program probably won’t change the way the store buys from its own distributors. “We’re not turning into a Whole Foods,” says Kris Kowalski Christiansen, the company’s chief operating officer. “We’re leaving it up to the consumer. They’re responsible for their health and they’re capable of making informed choices.”
Kowalski’s was founded in 1983, when Jim Kowalski and his wife, Mary Anne, bought the Red Owl store they were operating on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. They now own eight Kowalski’s stores in the Twin Cities metro area. Kowalski’s has differentiated itself by offering distinctive products, operating its own bakery facility, and creating unique designs for its stores. Its Woodbury store, for instance, has been designed to resemble a European village, and features a glass-walled bakery oven, three restaurant concepts, a gift shop, a Juut Salon Spa, and a Natural Path department that offers organic and natural foods and homeopathic remedies.
Christiansen says that her father has long believed that a program like Good Foods for Good Health points to the future of the grocery business. “People are going to start getting smart and demanding information on their health from the sources where they buy their food,” she says.
