Food brands are discovering great access to consumers through supermarket registered dietitians (RDs). Most chains employ a number of RDs or “consumer affairs advisors,” some as many as one per store. As long as your brand can promote from a health/nutrition platform of some kind, this can be an excellent way to connect with consumers through their local, trusted grocery store. Naturally, someone identified this trend and created an annual conference and an online content library called Shopping for Health that gives brands access to supermarket RDs.
Dave Cyphers, CEO of The Cyphers Agency is speaking at the Shopping for Health conference in Charleston, SC next week to a group of Supermarket RDs that together represent over 90% of the grocery stores in the US. The presentation covers the latest trends in social media from the supermarket RD’s perspective. They are at the forefront of engaging consumers on behalf of grocery stores. Their marketing and PR departments quickly realized that their RDs have what consumers want to hear – new ideas for eating healthy, serving suggestions, recipes, fun facts. Shopping for Health is the brainchild of Nancy Piho, an accomplished food public relations professional and author. Nancy saw this increasingly important niche of dietitians growing in number and influence. She started her conference four years ago and has expanded sponsorships to allow brands and commodity boards to post content on the Shopping for Health website. Nancy’s team of RDs vets the content – it must focus on a health/nutrition angle and makes it available in a searchable online database. Supermarket registered dietitians and consumer affairs advisors can access the site for free, receive a quarterly newsletter with seasonal content. The idea is to make the RD’s life easier by providing vetted content that is already formatted for Facebook or blog posts, tweets, newsletter articles fact sheet handouts, even point of sale and in-store event ideas.
