We want to take the lead and support our customers by making healthier eating easier

Customers increasingly care about their health

Our customers tell us that health is important and want us to make healthier eating easier for them and their families. We are committed to helping our customers do more of the healthy things they're already doing and supporting our customers to make healthier choices no matter where they are on their health journey. 

What are we doing to support our customers?

Inspiring healthy choices for a better future

Woolworths is determined to help kids eat healthier with our Fresh Food Kids program. Our ambition is to make it fun and easy for kids to eat fruit and vegetables by empowering them with educational and hands-on activities. That’s why we:

• offer Free Fruit for Kids in all Woolworths supermarkets across Australia - approximately 16 million pieces of fruit are donated each year. In 2021, we proudly reach the milestone of providing more than 100 million pieces of free fruit to kids since program launch in 2015. 
• launched Fresh Food Kids Discovery Tours nationwide. Children from primary school and early learning centres are invited to come to our stores to learn, touch and taste an array of fruit and vegetables. More than 61,000 students across the nation joined the tour in F20.
• established partnerships with a range of organisations that align with Woolworths' philosophy of improving nutrition and physical activity amongst children including Life Education, Cricket Australia, Surfing Australia and Netball Australia

Reducing prices on healthier products

We know that budget is a barrier to healthy eating for more than one third of Australians, so we’re helping to make healthier choices more affordable by offering hundreds of healthier products on low prices nationally. Some of the new healthier for you products added to the prices dropped program include core foods or foods with 4 or more Health Stars. 
Woolworths defines items as ‘healthier’ based on whether it's a core food as laid out by the Australian Dietary Guidelines or has a health star rating of 4 or above.

Imperfect Produce

Having access to affordable fresh fruit and vegetables is a priority for our customers. Our Woolworths Odd Bunch range of imperfect fruit and vegetables not only helps customers save money, it also helps minimise food waste. This has been a highly successful program, and Woolworths has sold more than 204,000 tonnes of the Odd Bunch range since 2015 - a testament to the support of customers looking for affordable, but funky looking fruit and vegetables. 

Signposting healthier options

To help our customers find healthier choices in store we have:

• Woolworths and Countdown supermarkets display the Health Star Rating on all eligible own brand products, using this as a tool to help drive positive reformulation and healthier product development.
• Raised awareness of the Health Star Rating in the catalogue, on shopping baskets and on our supermarket website. 
• Developed new store formats with a focus on fresh and healthy food by increasing space in renewed stores for fresh fruit and vegetables and more shelf space has been allocated to dedicated health aisles.
• Woolworths shopping website now displays nutrition information and the health star rating where applicable
• Woolworths Fresh Market Update was reintroduced to educate customers about new, affordable and in-season produce

Improving the nutrition of Woolworths Food Range

We are committed to providing clear and transparent labelling, not using additives our customers have asked us to remove, and improving the nutritional profile of products to make healthier choices easier. All Woolworths food range now have no artificial colours and flavours or added MSG.

Stakeholder engagement 

Woolworths is part of the Government’s Healthy Food Partnership Executive Committee, which aims to improve the dietary habits of Australians. 

 

Growing a good food team culture

We now employ five accredited nutritionists across Australia and New Zealand to implement our health guidelines and commitments. To embed our health strategy in 2018 Australia established a cross-functional health working group supported by our Executive Committee with representatives from buying, marketing, strategy and nutrition.

Australia's healthiest Own Brands

In August 2020, the George Institute for Global health found that Woolworths' Own Brands were the healthiest of any major Australian supermarket based on the mean Health Star Ratings compared to Coles, Aldi and IGA.  

We are determined to lead the way when it comes to helping our customers make healthier choices, with these initiatives representing the start of our journey in this area.