WASHINGTON -- During the second day of the Partnership for a Healthier America's Building a Healthier Future Summit, convenience store retailer Kwik Trip Inc. joined Dannon and Del Monte to announce new commitments to make healthier choices more accessible and affordable for consumers. PHA, which is hosting the summit, works with the private sector and PHA honorary chair First Lady Michelle Obama to solve the nation's childhood obesity crisis.
La Crosse, Wis.-based Kwik Trip, a family-owned business that runs more than 400 convenience stores and other outlets in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, committed to improving healthier food access and implementing a new EATSmart program and other policies that promote healthy habits among consumers. Kwik Trip will also start a Healthy Concessions Program that allows organizations to purchase healthier items at discounted prices to use in their fundraising efforts.
The retailer will:
- Offer four categories of fruit, four categories of vegetables, six whole grain products and four nonfat or low-fat dairy products. All of these foods will be priced less than Kwik Trip's regional average price to increase the affordability of such healthy products for customers.
- Promote at least two EATSmart combination meals that meet specific nutrient and affordability criteria.
- Encourage healthy behaviors among both consumers and employees by labeling all EATSmart items and fountain beverage machines with their caloric content information, offer a free piece of daily fruit to all working employees and provide bicycle racks at every new store built. (Click here for Kwik Trip's EATSmart webpage with menu and brochure.)
- Offer organizations healthier food and beverage items for their local fundraising events through the new Healthy Concessions Program, which provides discounted prices on items that contain less than 500 calories, less than 10% calories from saturated fat and less than 600 mg of sodium per serving.
Dannon, the nation's leading producer of yogurt, committed to improving nutrient density and reducing sugar and fat in its yogurt products. Dannon will also invest in education and research focused on healthy eating habits.
Del Monte Foods Inc., one of the country's largest producers, distributors and marketers of premium quality, branded food products for the U.S. retail market, committed to improving the nutrient density of what it sells through marketing and new product innovation. It also is donating more fruit and vegetable products to anti-hunger efforts.
"Innovation has always proven critical when exploring solutions to our nation's health, and the commitments made by Dannon, Del Monte and Kwik Trip are examples of how the private sector can transform and innovate to address the needs of society," said Larry Soler, President and CEO of Partnership for a Healthier America. "Each year we are getting closer to our goal to build a healthier nation and solve the childhood obesity crisis. And that is because of the leadership from organizations such as Dannon, Del Monte and Kwik Trip, as well as Sodexo, Nutri Ventures, Knowledge Universe, FirstBIKE, UnityPoint Health-Trinity, Eskenazi Health, Meridian and St. Luke's Hospital, which announced their commitments yesterday."
The Partnership for a Healthier America is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation's youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010, PHA was created in conjunction with but independent from First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! effort. PHA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is led by some of the nation's most respected health and childhood obesity experts. PHA brings together public, private and nonprofit leaders to broker meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end childhood obesity.
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