Better for you inspiration in Los Angeles

Los Angeles and California overall are rightly seen as beacons in terms of future trends around healthier eating and drinking and better for you solutions across grocery and broader wellness.

And there's a huge amount to learn from concepts here, as we've discovered in visits over recent years. Here we've focused on our four top concepts to learn from based on our recent visits.  

Erewhon

 

Some see Erewhon as a supermarket, others as a health supplements or healthier eating specialist. But however you categorise it, in our view it has managed to achieve something that very few in our sector have done – it’s become a lifestyle brand. It is the brand that leads conversations and – in locations such as Culver City in particular – determines the environment. It’s achieved a level of buy-in from its customers that others can typically only aspire to. And it sells impressive, highly differentiated product, which looks beautiful. All in all, a pilgrimage that anyone involved in better for you food or healthier oriented retailing should make at least once. On our recent visits, broths and supplements such as sea moss gel have caught our focus, but they're backed up by a broader healthy eating and drinking offer that pushes boundaries.

Mendocino Farms

Think Salad Project and Farmer J but with a stronger farm-led lens around fresh ingredients and impactful flavours. This concept, especially in the Farmer’s Market adjacent location, very much impresses. Sandwiches and bowls lie at the heart of the proposition, but these are just the means of conveying what are excellent, tasty, quality ingredients. It’s the eating that convinces you about this concept, highly effectively supported by the environment its sold and consumed in. Mendocino Farms' estate now extends to around 90 locations, around 70 of these being in California. And crucially, for anyone looking at how premium, healthier concepts can extend beyond major cities, with increasing geographic spread (albeit in California).

True Food Kitchen

 

True Food Kitchen is actually more of a restaurant than a food-to-go outlet, but it is nonetheless very relevant for anyone considering the future opportunity around better for you food-to-go or meals for tonight. And in fact, they’ve been running their own food-to-go outlet as a test bed – in addition to their 50 strong restaurant operation – since the start of last year.

Ingredients obsessed, chef crafted is one its key mantras. Based on the belief that good food evokes a good mood, True Food Kitchen was founded in 2008 by Dr Andrew Weil. The menu is broad, but built on the principle of great ingredients and the belief that eating food should help you feel better. It currently operates close to 50 locations across 18 states.

Sprouts Farmers Market

 

Like True Food Kitchen, Sprouts can be found in numerous locations across the US, approaching 500 in fact, across c. 25 states, with a recent annual growth rate of c. 30 stores per year.

It's best seen as a fresh led supermarket. Its core is as you’d expect very much around fresh food, physically located, typically, in the heart of the store. It’s supported by a growing range of food-for-now and food-for-later solutions, as well as a significant better for you / wellness section.  Natural, fresh and better for you products is a key theme across its comms and in-store, as is its affordable prices - it came out favourably in a price comparison we did across key competitors in prepared fruits. It's not covering everything you might need from a weekly shop, but it feels like it's covering most of your food needs, and definitely the good stuff within it. And it is doing this, to our mind, very effectively.

So what are the key trends and developments we’re seeing?

 

• There’s an opportunity for healthier ranges across more operators. The Coop Holland & Barrett collaboration currently running is a great case in point.

• Selected core ranges in food retail and foodservice can benefit from a health makeover – the True Food Kitchen example is a particularly strong one, with relevance and applicability across several European markets, including the UK.

• Healthier, fresher quality food-to-go is doing fantastically well in big cities, but how to translate this into smaller towns, convenience stores and roadside locations? We’ve tracked several operators in their endeavours around this, and noted the leaerningeach time. If you’re looking at this, we should definitely talk.

• We’ve barely covered the wider trends in many of these stores – and in particular Erewhon – in this article. But there is a lot to learn here – the current focus on protein is still going strong for many, but it will evolve and shift its focus going forward. This, too, will combine with a broader array of requirements, not least for increased fibre, as health literacy rises further. And in fact, that’s what our healthier eating food safaris cover, typically across food retail and food-to-go, in leading cities across Europe, including London, Paris and Madrid, run in collaboration with trained nutritionist Julia Varela. These sessions including better-for-you and healthier eating trends deep dives as well as the opportunity to explore first hand in-store the approach of different retailers and food-to-go specialists in meeting these. Get in touch to find out more.