Canadian Retailer - Summer 2016 - 27

CANADIANS see their family doctor about once a year. Yet the

average Canadian will visit their grocery store once a week.
Some will visit several times a week.
It is in this reality of everyday life that Canadian grocers see
an opportunity to offer something more to their customers. Increasingly, grocers are seeing their stores as hubs for community health, with a full complement of pharmacists, dietitians,
wellness counsellors, opticians, and medical clinics. And, as
they reformulate their stores to offer good advice as well as
good produce, customers seem to be buying it.
Leading to health

strained services, and a growing need for accessible care and illness prevention, our network of stores offers access and convenience,
and our network of pharmacists offer an extended range of services to improve patient
outcomes," he said at an AGM.
Within 13 months of acquiring Shoppers, the
retailer had administered a million flu shots,
reviewed the medications of 700,000 customers, and promised to reformulate Shoppers' Life
Brand and Loblaw's President's Choice household and beauty products to remove micro
beads and certain plastericizers and anti-fungal agents.

The work is necessary, says Vanessa Yurchesyn, an in-store
dietitian with Loblaw. She works for Atlantic Superstore in Saint
John, NB, and encounters misinformation on a
daily basis about everything from false claims "Against a backdrop of provincial health budget
about nutrition to fad diets.
cuts, strained services, and a growing need
"There is so much misinformation because
there is always a new headline in the media. De- for accessible care and illness prevention, our
pending on the source, some people choose to network of stores offers access and convenience,
believe it," she says. "We bust those myths on a
and our network of pharmacists offer an extended
daily basis."
Not only are there myths and misinformation, range of services to improve patient outcomes."
but the overall health of Canadians is changing-
- GALEN G. WESTON, Loblaw Companies Ltd.
for the worse. The population is growing older and more obese,
Another significant foray into healthcare
and the rate of diabetes is skyrocketing: Canada has some of
was
the opening of Loblaw's Patient Contact
the highest per capita rates of diabetes than any other counCentre
in Mississauga. The centre was cretry in the world, according to the Organisation for Economic
ated
to
address the problem of "non-adherCo-operation and Development.
ence."
Patients
who don't take their prescribed
"Customers are craving health information, and so it's
medications
are
said to be non-adherent. Apimportant that we create a space where customers can make
proximately
125,000
Canadians die each year
health decisions and get credible information," says Yurchesyn.
from
non-adherence,
a tragedy that costs the
This is exactly what many grocers have done. Skim the webhealthcare
system
nearly
$8-billion. The censites of most major grocers and customers will find a cornucopia
tre's
125
staff
of
pharmacists
and pharmacy
of recipes, health food advice, cooking tips, and information on
technicians
make
more
than
100,000
phone
how to live a healthier life. Sobeys launched Sobey TV, a web
calls
a
week
to
doctors
and
patients
so
that
channel that offers recipe makeovers and food advice, and hosts
each
customer
has
the
right
drug
regiment,
#betterfoodforall, a hashtag and website that offers weekly meal
plans to encourage customers to cook at home, including links refills when they need them, and the encourto content the grocer produced with celebrity chef Jamie Oli- agement and support they need to take their
ver. Dietitians are on staff at Sobeys, Loblaw, Metro, IGA Fresh medication as prescribed.
Street, Thrifty Foods, and others. The trend has been towards
larger produce departments, more organic and non-GMO offer- In-store health community
Colleen Miller began her career as a clinical
ings, and larger selections of sustainable fish.
dietitian
at North York General Hospital. The
Pharmacy is the other direction grocers have taken to offer
work
was
constant, but in the hospital situamore health services. Loblaw, Longo's, Sobeys, and many other
tion,
the
issues
were severe and patients would
grocers made the inclusion of a pharmacy a standard model of
take
her
advice,
leave, and she would never see
grocery store. In Canada, a seismic shift occurred in 2014 when
them
again.
Loblaw acquired Shoppers Drug Mart for $12.4-billion. The pur"I always thought, is that enough?" says Milchase married two major chains and provided a sturdy foundaler,
now a dietitian at Sobeys. She says her move
tion for the company's stated purpose: to help customers "live life
to
a
grocery store has helped advance her work
well." Company President Galen G. Weston has said that Loblaw
as
a
dietitian. "Sobeys saw the connection bewill expand its role from mere grocery store, and mere pharmacy,
tween
grocery stores, where people make decito become "a nutrition, health and wellness provider."
sions
about
food, and healthy diets."
"Against a backdrop of provincial health budget cuts,
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