Shaping the future of Healthy Living in Scotland

SLR hosted an important retailer forum last month to gather input that will help shape the future of the SGF Healthy Living Programme in Scotland – and some great ideas were generated.

by Antony Begley

When the Healthy Living Programme was initially launched  back in 2004, it was received by the local retailing industry with what could possibly best be described as an enthusiastic scepticism. The idea of promoting fresh fruit and vegetables, milk and other healthier products in convenience stores was viewed as worthy and commendable, but most retailers probably thought it unlikely that that it would  be much of a success. Don’t forget that back in 2004 it was extremely rare to find fruit and veg in local retailing outlets and at that point very few would have predicted the explosion in the fresh category that was to take place over the following decade or so.

So it was with a wry smile and not a little satisfaction that Healthy Living Programme Director Ross Kerr invited a large delegation of top notch retailers to Cromlix House in Perthshire last month, 13 years later, to a forum hosted by SLR to help shape the future of one of the most successful programmes in Scottish local retailing history.

From that small pilot back in 2004, the SGF Healthy Living Programme can now claim more than 2,000 retailers across Scotland as active participants, a figure that represents not far off half of all convenience stores in the country.

The Programme also arguably represents the most successful partnership between the Scottish Government and the Scottish local convenience retailing sector in history. The Government has funded the Programme since its national rollout in 2005 and gives every indication that it will continue to do so into the future.

Our task last month was to gather retailers from all corners of the industry to collect feedback and ideas for what the Programme should look like for the next two, three, five and 10 years.

From that humble pilot, the Programme now employs four Development Managers, all working on a part time basis and covering the whole of Scotland including the Highlands and Islands.

Whether the explosion in fresh would have happened anyway, or whether the Healthy Living Programme caused it (or at least accelerated it) is a moot point for Kerr. The fact remains that back in 2004, convenience stores either didn’t stock or fruit and veg or, if they did, it was buried away at the back of the store, unloved and largely unsold. These days fresh is the first thing you see when you enter many convenience stores. It’s the category retailers focus on to make a statement to their customers as soon as they walk through the front door.

Perhaps most tellingly of all however is that the vast majority of good stores in Scotland now stock fresh. Despite that initial scepticism about whether customers would buy fruit and veg from convenience stores, most now do – and retailers don’t stock produce that doesn’t sell. It was a minor master stroke to appoint Kerr to head the Programme up as his lengthy experience at a senior level at Walkers meant he understood the real-world problems the Programme would face when trying to encourage local retailers to embrace what seemed like a massive change. This experience has been instrumental as Kerr has liaised between the Scottish Government and retailers to ensure that both parties understood one another, and both got what they they wanted out of the Programme. Kerr instinctively understood that retailers needed stocking fresh to be profitable, not just morally and ethically satisfying.

It wasn’t always an easy journey but the Healthy Living stands that began to pop up in 2005 soon became more or less ubiquitous and retailers found that their shoppers were indeed interested in buying fruit and veg from them, if the produce was good quality and it was well presented.

The most recent significant development for the Programme was the shift in focus away from exclusively fruit and veg to a wider range of healthier products – and it’s partly this shift in focus that Kerr and his team were keen to hear feedback on from a room full of proactive, high quality independent retailers covering all areas of the country and most of the large symbol groups. Importantly, the forum was also attended by the Scottish Government who were keen to gain first hand feedback on how the Programme is being received and interpreted at the coal face.

“Today is all about the future and we’re looking for some thoughts and feedback to help us decide where to take the Programme in future,” said Ross Kerr on opening the meeting, and that’s exactly what the next few hours provided.

The conversation ranged across many topics from the improved availability of good quality fresh produce and the dramatic improvement in chilled delivery availability, particularly from the main wholesalers and symbol groups, as well as the dedicated fresh specialists operating in Scotland.

Encouragingly, the bulk of the feedback was of a positive nature with all retailers in the room confirming that fresh is a key category for them and that they take the category seriously in-store.

Two areas which elicited much interest and enthusiasm were the Big Breakfast concept that has been trialled successfully in recent times by retailers including Dennis and Linda Williams in Edinburgh, Harris Aslam in Fife and Mo Razzaq in Lanarkshire.

Linda Williams outlined to the group her experience of running a number of Big Breakfasts in conjunction with local primary schools and described the experience as “hugely gratifying”.

The Healthy Living Programme has now introduced a formalised process to help retailers to work with primary schools and hold Big Breakfasts of their own, complete with professional POS material and a wide range of practical support. Judging from the feedback around the room, this is an initiative that will only escalate over the next year or two.

The concept is also being broadened out into Healthy Eating Days which take place within stores themselves itself with primary school children attending the shop. Indeed, a recent Healthy Eating Day saw over 1,200  school pupils visiting convenience stores between the end of November 2016 and mid-January 2017.

Linda Williams commented: “Involving children of this age not only helps us educate children on healthier eating but it really does give the retailer the opportunity to be identified as the true community hub – and I can tell you from experience that it helps drive footfall to the store too.”

This thought prompted Donna Morgan of Best One @ Brownlies in Biggar to suggest an annual Healthy Eating Week where retailers across Scotland could be encouraged to get involved and make a lot of noise, as well as generating local press coverage and bringing children and their parents into the store. It’s an idea that ticks all the boxes and one that proved extremely popular with the delegation at Cromlix House.

A second key strand of the day was the broadening of the Healthy Living Programme out from fruit and veg into other healthier product categories, although this is a complex area to manage for Ross Kerr and his team. The Programme takes its lead from what is actually ‘healthier’ from Food Standard Scotland but communicating which products qualify is a thorny and complicated challenge.

“A great deal of work is required to progress this concept,” says Kerr. “But that was what was said back in 2004 when we were talking about the opportunity of fruit and veg and that didn’t put us off, so watch this space!”

It’s almost impossible to comprehend how far the Healthy Living Programme has come since 2004 but with fruit and veg now a mainstay of over 2,000 stores it’s impossible to argue that it hasn’t worked. Consumers across Scotland now have easier, more convenient access to fresh produce than ever before – and for that both Ross Kerr and his team and all 2,000 retailers involved can give themselves a pat on the back.

There is indeed a great deal of work still to do, but the desire and the passion to do it is evident in bucket loads. The Scottish convenience sector can once again be proud of the work it has done in communities up and down the country.