'Food compass' - the new service from Bio-Planet - offers customers free, personalised nutritional advice

Bio-Planet, Colruyt Group's bio supermarket, launches 'Food compass’, a unique platform that provides customers with personalised nutritional advice. Customers who consent to have their purchase data analysed receive weekly nutrition advice tailored to their families, with the option of getting advice from a dietitian. In this way, Bio-Planet is helping its customers gain insight into their eating habits and helping them make more conscious food choices. Bio-Planet is the first supermarket chain in Belgium to offer such a service for free. The supermarket has started with a first group of customers and over the next 6 months, it will help 1,500 families in Flanders achieve a more balanced diet.

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

‘Food compass’: personalised advice and guidance from a dietitian

Launching on 16 October, the specialist organic supermarket chain forming part of the Colruyt Group will be providing weekly personalised nutrition advice to around 1,500 customers via the 'Food compass’. This new service analyses the eating habits of participants and guides them towards a more balanced diet. Customers who want personalised dietary advice sign up using their Xtra profile and complete a one-off questionnaire about their eating habits and of other family members. In doing so, they give permission to have any purchases they make in the Bio-Planet, Colruyt and OKay stores – and soon Spar Colruyt Group as well – analysed via their Xtra card.

Bio-Planet bases its nutritional advice on the recently renewed Nutrition Triangle, allowing it to formulate recommendations for each age group. If participants have questions about their personalised dietary advice, a dietitian is on hand to help. “This service is unique in Belgium", emphasises Jo Ghilain, business unit manager at Bio-Planet. “Because we want to tackle this topic thoroughly and want to guarantee the quality of the advice given, we are starting in Flanders with about 1,500 participants in a pilot phase. What is important is that customers register voluntarily and that the dietary advice is non-committal. Customers decide for themselves whether or not to take the advice. And of course, respecting the privacy of participants is key.”

Help customers consume consciously

‘Food compass' fits perfectly with Bio-Planet's ambition to help customers consume more consciously. “The awareness of healthy and balanced nutrition is growing, but due to an abundance of products and information it is not always easy to make a balanced choice, which is why personalised advice has an important role to play”, says Jo Ghilain. “With Food compass, Bio-Planet is fulfilling a social role: we inspire our customers and help them understand their diet so that they can make conscious food choices themselves. Our buyers are constantly looking for new products and alternatives that score even better in terms of health and sustainability. Additionally, customers can find inspiration for living more consciously from our brochures, magazines and on our website.”

Bio-Planet will evaluate the new service after 6 months. “The more feedback and tips we get, the more focused the advice we can give. The intention is to extend 'Food compass' to the whole of Belgium because we believe in its added value for our customers.” If you want to receive personalised nutritional advice, you can register until 15 October via www.bio-planet.be/voedingskompas.

Numerous initiatives on balanced nutrition

The new Bio-Planet service fits seamlessly with Colruyt Group's earlier initiatives to make conscious food choices possible. For example, at the end of August, the group chose Nutri-Score, a food label that converts the nutritional quality of products into a clear and scientifically validated letter and colour code. The first products with Nutri-Score have been on the shelves since the end of September. The SmartWithFood app - launched two years ago by the same-named subsidiary of Colruyt Group - gives customers insight into the composition, allergens and Nutri-Score of a particular product.

Colruyt Group not only invests in transparent food and product information, it continuously makes efforts to bring more sustainable and healthier products to the market. For example, since 2014, Colruyt Group has systematically adjusted the nutritional composition of its own brands. Where possible, there have been reductions in the amount of salt (-140 tons in 2016/2017), sugar (-132 tons) and fats (-106 tons) in products.