An interactive 18-wheel trailer retrofitted for the Guiding Stars’ Nutrition Navigation System will appear at Food Lion and Bloom stores through the fall.
The “Guiding Stars 3 Star Kitchen” will visit stores and community events in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
It showed up at a new Food Lion in Mooresville at 1339 Shearers Road this past week.
“We are very pleased to have the Guiding Stars system in our stores now,” said Ken Mills, vice president of sales and marketing for Food Lion. “A simple, at-a-glance way to shop nutritiously, Guiding Stars can be proven through the actual shopping experience, and this tour takes a sample experience out of the stores and into the community.”
The vehicle and crew are part of an exhibit designed to engage potential shoppers and community members in making better food choices for proper nutrition and wellness. Food items receive one, two or three-star ratings based on their nutritious content. The tour features each food group in a separate room, with accompanying recipes and food samples.
The exhibit includes kid-friendly activities with nutritious snacks, temporary tattoos and a kid zone that also provides a cool resting place for parents.
Bloom launched the nutrition navigation system in June, and Food Lion added the program in July.
Food Lion revamps five stores to fit Hispanic market Food Lion is making over five stores to fit the Hispanic grocery market, according to a report in Progressive Grocer.
Daniel Herrera, marketing manager at the Salisbury-based chain, said the stores will reopen under the Food Lion banner this month after being remodeled and remerchandised to appeal to the preferences of Hispanic consumers in the Raleigh-Durham market.
He was speaking at the Nielsen Hispanic Retail 360 Summit. Held in Miami, Fla., the summit was hosted by the Nielsen Business Media Retail Group, of which Progressive Grocer is a part.
Food Lion is placing special emphasis in the merchandising and marketing of produce, deli-prepared foods, fresh departments, dry goods, beverages, paper products, detergents and others.
Herrera was joined by Terry Soto, a noted Hispanic marketing consultant and the president of About Marketing Solutions Inc. Soto said Food Lion planned to expand the Hispanic retail concept to as many as 100 stores.
Food Lion will take flexible spending account cardsFood Lion stores are accepting customers’ Flexible Spending Account or Healthcare Reimbursement Account cards at all store registers.
The transaction process will automatically deduct the cost of FSA/HRA items from a customer’s total grocery bill once the card has been entered into the payment process.
The cards can be used by customers to purchase IRS approved health-care and pharmacy items. For a list of qualified health-care products and answers to common questions about the use of the cards at Food Lion stores, log on to www.foodlion.com.