Raley’s, the regional food retailer headquartered in West Sacramento, CA, has developed its own nutritional hang tags to provide greater transparency to consumers at the shelf.
Raley’s Shelf Guide system features eight different colored icons:
- M - Minimally processed
- N - Nutrient Dense
- S - No Added Sugar
- GF - Gluten Free
- G - Non-GMO
- O - Organics
- V - Vegan
- K - Kosher
The grocer said the simplified labeling on more than 13,000 products enables shoppers to quickly interpret whether a product meets their needs without having to analyze multiple labels.
Online, shoppers can sort for products using the Shelf Guide icons to quickly find products that meet their health and wellness needs. Raley’s noted that Nielsen data shows that 59 percent of grocery shoppers experience difficulty in understanding nutrition facts on product packaging.
The program was independently developed by Raley’s with 122 stores in Northern California and Nevada in partnership with Label Insight and “is not driven by any brands or products,” according to the company. Label Insight uses data science to gain access to product information for more than 400,000 products. The program was reviewed and supported by Arianna Carughi, Ph. D. in Nutritional Sciences, University of California, Berkeley.
The program's “Minimally Processed” and “Nutrient Dense” callouts are unique among shelf tag descriptions. The system also claims to extend beyond other existing nutritional labeling by including criteria for sodium, sugar and fiber content.
Stated Michael Teel, Raley’s owner and CEO, “Only foods that meet the strict standards of Raley’s will qualify for the Shelf Guide tags. I challenge food manufacturers to aspire to meet our Shelf Guide standards for their products at Raley’s.”
The food industry continues to struggle to find a simple, unified nutritional labeling system with few embracing guides created by brands and independent entities. A visit to some grocers in Manhattan found only a few stickers or hang tags being used, specifically for Gluten Free and Non-GMO. Whole Foods also featured Local stickers for locally-sourced foods.
