NutriCentre has announced a dramatic “range reset” after a comprehensive overhaul of its consumer offer. The Tesco-owned nutritional retailer has also pledged to support innovative new suppliers and help make supplements more “appealing and accessible” to shoppers.
The new management team at NutriCentre unveiled its plans at a press conference in London last week.
In a candid analysis of the NutriCentre business, managing director Jessica Frame – appointed last April after the departure of Amee Chande – told journalists: “We know we’ve not been living up to our heritage, so we’re doing a big refocus. We know we’ve still not got it 100% right, but we’re open – and we’re super open to learning. But to be clear, we’ve had a huge amount of foundation to fix.”
“We know we’ve not been living up to our heritage, so we’re doing a big refocus”
Frame (pictured) said that a six-month rethink of the NuriCentre offer included asking the question ‘what is the point of NutriCentre?’”. The answer the team came up with – ‘to help people fee the best they can’ – was, she said, “pretty simple”.
Range reset
The most visible change is the “range reset”. This sees a dramatic consolidation of the number of products carried by NutriCentre – down from 27,000 to 6,200, but including 690 new lines. This will be supported by “three clear trading channels and one centralized buying team”, said Frame, while a new fulfillment partnership with logistics and warehouse provider ProFS has been created to fix previous problems with product availability.
NutriCentre has also relaunched its website. “It’s all about being a content hub. We’re a destination for the debate – and we want to create a positive environment that encourages debate. We also want to encourage independently practicing nutritionists to get involved, to contribute blogs and so on.”
Frame said that retailer’s biggest USP continued to be the professionally qualified nutritional therapists and sports nutritionists always on hand in its biggest stores.
Head of product, Gervase Fay, said that the retailer had been working to ensure that the product range was more customer focused and “trying to make supplements more appealing and accessible”. She also revealed that some ranges had been pulled because of potential compliance issues. She said: “Compliance in this sector is really hard. But we want to be a trusted destination and be fully compliant. So, we’ve removed brands where we’ve had to. But we’re also working with brands to help them be compliant.”
Only way is ethics
As well as highlighting efficacy and purity, and a mission to sell “only products that we recommend”, NutriCentre is emphasizing its business ethics. Fay added: “Ethics is probably the most important factor. We want to make sure everyone in the supply chain is treated well – and that they themselves are getting their ingredients from reliable, trusted sources”. She said that NutriCentre would act as a seedbed for innovative brands. “When those brands have grown and reached the right scale we can start to move them into Tesco stores across the country.”
Back to basics
Head of customer, James Burton-Lee, said that feedback from customers had shown that there was a growing demand for solution-led shopping. A focus last year on digestion and weight management had been received well by both shoppers and brands, so further themed promotions – on topics including energy, heart health and mood and fitness – are planned for 2016.
“A really key group for us is the ‘interested but not fully informed’ shopper. They’re the people we want to help”
He said: “You’ll see things really improving in store. We’ve gone back to basics to deliver a really good experience for customers. But the changes we’re making are more to do with how we are curating the range – helping customers navigate more easily and self-select for their needs – than with the look of the stores.”
Answering a question about the type of consumer NutriCentre was aiming to attract, Frame summarized: “People with an existing interest in nutrition and wellbeing. They know about Paelo, they buy hummus, have probably given up bread. In that sense they’re not the average Tesco customer. A really key group for us is the ‘interested but not fully informed’ shopper. They’re the people we want to help.”
Rethinking NutriCentre
NutriCentre currently has store-within-a-store features at 23 larger Tesco stores, each of which has qualified nutritional therapists on hand to advise shoppers. It also has 300 NutriCentre branded bays and fixtures in smaller stores. A six-month process of resetting the NutriCentre offer has included:
- Streaming the product offer – down from 27,000 lines to 6,200
- Emphasizing purity, efficacy and compliance
- A pledge to prioritize business ethics
- Help to support innovative new brands
- Targeting of the ‘interested but not fully informed’ health shopper
- A solution-led approach, complemented by clearer store navigation
- Improved logistics and product availability
Jim Manson
