RETAIL CHAMPION 2026 | EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING | HEALTHY FOOD
Making Healthy Food Easy to Choose
Why a strong offer has to fit the way people already shop.
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
The 2026 Healthy Food results contain a useful surprise. ROSSMANN, a drugstore rather than a supermarket, scores 60%, only five percentage points behind the joint Champions, SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC, both at 65%. That alone makes it difficult to describe Healthy Food as a competition over who has the biggest fresh-food department or the widest organic range. Very different retailers can apparently give shoppers a strong sense that healthy food belongs in their offer.
The way YouGov measures the category helps explain why. Shoppers for whom a healthy offer matters are asked whether the store has a good offer of healthy food, while the supporting questions range from BIO or organic products to unprocessed food, fresh meat and fish, fruit and vegetables, and produce from local suppliers. Healthy Food therefore reaches from the ordinary ingredients of a meal to much more explicitly signposted choices.
That creates a practical retail question. When does a collection of relevant products become an offer that shoppers can actually recognise, understand and use?
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
Healthy food starts with ordinary food
For a supermarket shopper, healthier eating does not necessarily begin in a specialist aisle. It may begin with vegetables for dinner, fruit for breakfast, fresh fish, meat, bread or ingredients that require very little explanation. Before the shopper thinks about an organic label, a protein claim or a particular diet, the store still has to work as a place to buy food.
An October Club of 369 In-Store discussion brought that basic role of fresh food into focus. One participant described fruit, vegetables and other fresh products as so important to the grocery mission that shoppers may not even consider a food store if the fresh offer is missing. That is a practitioner view rather than a conclusion from the Retail Champion study, but it helps explain why Healthy Food cannot be separated too neatly from normal food shopping.
ALDI provides a useful example. In its Compact 2.0 and Urban formats, fresh products are placed at the beginning of the first aisle. Its expanded BIO range also contains familiar foods such as oat bread, pickled cucumbers, beetroot juice and sauerkraut. These are not products that require shoppers to adopt an unfamiliar way of eating; they can simply become another version of something already understood.
ALDI moved from 32% in 2025 to 61% in 2026 and received the Healthy Food Biggest Progress recognition after gaining fourteen places in the ranking. The result does not tell us which individual change produced that movement, but the proposition itself is revealing. Fresh food and a more explicit organic range have been made part of the same everyday shop rather than treated as a separate world for a specialist customer.
The distinctions still matter. Fresh does not automatically mean healthy, just as organic, plant-based, local and free-from do not mean the same thing. A useful offer helps shoppers navigate those differences without asking them to turn an ordinary trip to the store into a nutrition research project.
The offer has to make sense in this store
ROSSMANN makes the next part of the story particularly interesting. It cannot offer the same breadth of vegetables, meat, fish or basic meal ingredients as a supermarket, and there is little reason why it should try. The relevant strength in the retailer research is much narrower: an identifiable organic pantry that sits inside a drugstore visit.
Its 60% result therefore raises a different question. Perhaps a retailer does not need to cover every possible healthy-food need to be recognised in the category. It may be enough for the part it does offer to have a clear role in the wider reason people already come through the door.
The joint win by SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC points in a similar direction from the other end of the market. Both are food retailers, but their operating models are very different. E'LECLERC combines specialist choice with substantial fresh-food departments, while the SPOŁEM evidence includes fresh food, own production, local suppliers and specialist healthy or organic propositions in individual cooperatives. Their equal 65% result makes the idea of one winning Healthy Food model less convincing.
What seems to matter is not simply whether qualifying products are present. Shoppers also have to understand where those products fit in the store and why they belong there. A smaller range with a clear purpose may be easier to recognise than a much larger collection spread across several categories without an obvious shape.
That becomes especially important as the number of possible 'healthy' claims keeps growing. Organic, protein-rich, plant-based, less processed, free-from, functional and other propositions can all answer real customer needs, but they do not automatically belong with equal strength in every retail format.
Not every trend belongs on every shelf
Retail eventually brings the discussion back to a very physical constraint: there is only so much shelf space.
During another October Club of 369 discussion, a participant from another drugstore was asked why the business had not followed ROSSMANN further into food. The answer was refreshingly practical. Food would take space from categories closer to the retailer's main reason for being, while the company saw more opportunity in developing its core drugstore, perfumery and professional beauty offer.
That decision is as relevant as deciding what to add. Retailers can easily find arguments for expanding into the next trend. More organic products, more protein, more plant-based alternatives, more functional ingredients and more products for specific diets may all look attractive in isolation. Each also makes a claim on space, stock, communication and management attention, while potentially making the proposition harder rather than easier for shoppers to understand.
The right answer will therefore be different for different retailers. A supermarket may need broad fresh-food competence before a specialist health offer becomes meaningful. A discounter can make organic food part of an affordable everyday basket. A drugstore may earn recognition with a much narrower pantry range that makes sense beside the rest of what it sells. None needs to become the other.
The harder decision is choosing which healthier-food needs genuinely belong in the retailer's proposition and then making those choices visible often enough to become familiar. Products that appear once in a promotion or disappear between branches may be perfectly good products without ever creating a clear reason for shoppers to associate the retailer with Healthy Food.
That leaves a more useful set of questions than simply asking what healthy products should be added. Which healthier choices should this retailer make especially easy to find and understand? Which of those choices fit the shopping mission strongly enough to deserve scarce space? Can shoppers rely on finding the same idea again next week or in another branch? And, just as importantly, which attractive trends should the retailer deliberately leave to somebody else?
Those questions take the conversation beyond assortment. They are really about choosing what the retailer wants to be good at, then making that choice clear enough for shoppers to notice in ordinary shopping. We will continue exploring that challenge through the Club of 369 and at Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027 in Warsaw on 13-14 April 2027.
Key takeaways
Healthy-food recognition can come from very different stores. SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC tied at 65% in 2026. ROSSMANN, a drugstore with a narrower food offer, scored 60%. Shoppers can recognise a useful healthy-food range without seeing a full supermarket selection.
Healthier choices can fit into familiar food shopping. ALDI climbed fourteen places as its score rose from 32% to 61%. Its fresh-food displays near the first aisle and its organic range of familiar foods show how the offer can fit an ordinary visit.
Sometimes the smartest shelf decision is to leave something out. Every new product takes space and attention. A retailer must choose which healthier-food needs fit its shoppers, then make those choices easy to understand and find week after week.
RETAIL CHAMPION 2026 | EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING | HEALTHY FOOD
Making Healthy Food Easy to Choose
Why a strong offer has to fit the way people already shop.
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
The 2026 Healthy Food results contain a useful surprise. ROSSMANN, a drugstore rather than a supermarket, scores 60%, only five percentage points behind the joint Champions, SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC, both at 65%. That alone makes it difficult to describe Healthy Food as a competition over who has the biggest fresh-food department or the widest organic range. Very different retailers can apparently give shoppers a strong sense that healthy food belongs in their offer.
The way YouGov measures the category helps explain why. Shoppers for whom a healthy offer matters are asked whether the store has a good offer of healthy food, while the supporting questions range from BIO or organic products to unprocessed food, fresh meat and fish, fruit and vegetables, and produce from local suppliers. Healthy Food therefore reaches from the ordinary ingredients of a meal to much more explicitly signposted choices.
That creates a practical retail question. When does a collection of relevant products become an offer that shoppers can actually recognise, understand and use?
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
Healthy food starts with ordinary food
For a supermarket shopper, healthier eating does not necessarily begin in a specialist aisle. It may begin with vegetables for dinner, fruit for breakfast, fresh fish, meat, bread or ingredients that require very little explanation. Before the shopper thinks about an organic label, a protein claim or a particular diet, the store still has to work as a place to buy food.
An October Club of 369 In-Store discussion brought that basic role of fresh food into focus. One participant described fruit, vegetables and other fresh products as so important to the grocery mission that shoppers may not even consider a food store if the fresh offer is missing. That is a practitioner view rather than a conclusion from the Retail Champion study, but it helps explain why Healthy Food cannot be separated too neatly from normal food shopping.
ALDI provides a useful example. In its Compact 2.0 and Urban formats, fresh products are placed at the beginning of the first aisle. Its expanded BIO range also contains familiar foods such as oat bread, pickled cucumbers, beetroot juice and sauerkraut. These are not products that require shoppers to adopt an unfamiliar way of eating; they can simply become another version of something already understood.
ALDI moved from 32% in 2025 to 61% in 2026 and received the Healthy Food Biggest Progress recognition after gaining fourteen places in the ranking. The result does not tell us which individual change produced that movement, but the proposition itself is revealing. Fresh food and a more explicit organic range have been made part of the same everyday shop rather than treated as a separate world for a specialist customer.
The distinctions still matter. Fresh does not automatically mean healthy, just as organic, plant-based, local and free-from do not mean the same thing. A useful offer helps shoppers navigate those differences without asking them to turn an ordinary trip to the store into a nutrition research project.
The offer has to make sense in this store
ROSSMANN makes the next part of the story particularly interesting. It cannot offer the same breadth of vegetables, meat, fish or basic meal ingredients as a supermarket, and there is little reason why it should try. The relevant strength in the retailer research is much narrower: an identifiable organic pantry that sits inside a drugstore visit.
Its 60% result therefore raises a different question. Perhaps a retailer does not need to cover every possible healthy-food need to be recognised in the category. It may be enough for the part it does offer to have a clear role in the wider reason people already come through the door.
The joint win by SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC points in a similar direction from the other end of the market. Both are food retailers, but their operating models are very different. E'LECLERC combines specialist choice with substantial fresh-food departments, while the SPOŁEM evidence includes fresh food, own production, local suppliers and specialist healthy or organic propositions in individual cooperatives. Their equal 65% result makes the idea of one winning Healthy Food model less convincing.
What seems to matter is not simply whether qualifying products are present. Shoppers also have to understand where those products fit in the store and why they belong there. A smaller range with a clear purpose may be easier to recognise than a much larger collection spread across several categories without an obvious shape.
That becomes especially important as the number of possible 'healthy' claims keeps growing. Organic, protein-rich, plant-based, less processed, free-from, functional and other propositions can all answer real customer needs, but they do not automatically belong with equal strength in every retail format.
Not every trend belongs on every shelf
Retail eventually brings the discussion back to a very physical constraint: there is only so much shelf space.
During another October Club of 369 discussion, a participant from another drugstore was asked why the business had not followed ROSSMANN further into food. The answer was refreshingly practical. Food would take space from categories closer to the retailer's main reason for being, while the company saw more opportunity in developing its core drugstore, perfumery and professional beauty offer.
That decision is as relevant as deciding what to add. Retailers can easily find arguments for expanding into the next trend. More organic products, more protein, more plant-based alternatives, more functional ingredients and more products for specific diets may all look attractive in isolation. Each also makes a claim on space, stock, communication and management attention, while potentially making the proposition harder rather than easier for shoppers to understand.
The right answer will therefore be different for different retailers. A supermarket may need broad fresh-food competence before a specialist health offer becomes meaningful. A discounter can make organic food part of an affordable everyday basket. A drugstore may earn recognition with a much narrower pantry range that makes sense beside the rest of what it sells. None needs to become the other.
The harder decision is choosing which healthier-food needs genuinely belong in the retailer's proposition and then making those choices visible often enough to become familiar. Products that appear once in a promotion or disappear between branches may be perfectly good products without ever creating a clear reason for shoppers to associate the retailer with Healthy Food.
That leaves a more useful set of questions than simply asking what healthy products should be added. Which healthier choices should this retailer make especially easy to find and understand? Which of those choices fit the shopping mission strongly enough to deserve scarce space? Can shoppers rely on finding the same idea again next week or in another branch? And, just as importantly, which attractive trends should the retailer deliberately leave to somebody else?
Those questions take the conversation beyond assortment. They are really about choosing what the retailer wants to be good at, then making that choice clear enough for shoppers to notice in ordinary shopping. We will continue exploring that challenge through the Club of 369 and at Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027 in Warsaw on 13-14 April 2027.
Key takeaways
Healthy-food recognition can come from very different stores. SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC tied at 65% in 2026. ROSSMANN, a drugstore with a narrower food offer, scored 60%. Shoppers can recognise a useful healthy-food range without seeing a full supermarket selection.
Healthier choices can fit into familiar food shopping. ALDI climbed fourteen places as its score rose from 32% to 61%. Its fresh-food displays near the first aisle and its organic range of familiar foods show how the offer can fit an ordinary visit.
Sometimes the smartest shelf decision is to leave something out. Every new product takes space and attention. A retailer must choose which healthier-food needs fit its shoppers, then make those choices easy to understand and find week after week.
RETAIL CHAMPION 2026 | EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING | HEALTHY FOOD
Making Healthy Food Easy to Choose
Why a strong offer has to fit the way people already shop.
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
The 2026 Healthy Food results contain a useful surprise. ROSSMANN, a drugstore rather than a supermarket, scores 60%, only five percentage points behind the joint Champions, SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC, both at 65%. That alone makes it difficult to describe Healthy Food as a competition over who has the biggest fresh-food department or the widest organic range. Very different retailers can apparently give shoppers a strong sense that healthy food belongs in their offer.
The way YouGov measures the category helps explain why. Shoppers for whom a healthy offer matters are asked whether the store has a good offer of healthy food, while the supporting questions range from BIO or organic products to unprocessed food, fresh meat and fish, fruit and vegetables, and produce from local suppliers. Healthy Food therefore reaches from the ordinary ingredients of a meal to much more explicitly signposted choices.
That creates a practical retail question. When does a collection of relevant products become an offer that shoppers can actually recognise, understand and use?
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
Healthy food starts with ordinary food
For a supermarket shopper, healthier eating does not necessarily begin in a specialist aisle. It may begin with vegetables for dinner, fruit for breakfast, fresh fish, meat, bread or ingredients that require very little explanation. Before the shopper thinks about an organic label, a protein claim or a particular diet, the store still has to work as a place to buy food.
An October Club of 369 In-Store discussion brought that basic role of fresh food into focus. One participant described fruit, vegetables and other fresh products as so important to the grocery mission that shoppers may not even consider a food store if the fresh offer is missing. That is a practitioner view rather than a conclusion from the Retail Champion study, but it helps explain why Healthy Food cannot be separated too neatly from normal food shopping.
ALDI provides a useful example. In its Compact 2.0 and Urban formats, fresh products are placed at the beginning of the first aisle. Its expanded BIO range also contains familiar foods such as oat bread, pickled cucumbers, beetroot juice and sauerkraut. These are not products that require shoppers to adopt an unfamiliar way of eating; they can simply become another version of something already understood.
ALDI moved from 32% in 2025 to 61% in 2026 and received the Healthy Food Biggest Progress recognition after gaining fourteen places in the ranking. The result does not tell us which individual change produced that movement, but the proposition itself is revealing. Fresh food and a more explicit organic range have been made part of the same everyday shop rather than treated as a separate world for a specialist customer.
The distinctions still matter. Fresh does not automatically mean healthy, just as organic, plant-based, local and free-from do not mean the same thing. A useful offer helps shoppers navigate those differences without asking them to turn an ordinary trip to the store into a nutrition research project.
The offer has to make sense in this store
ROSSMANN makes the next part of the story particularly interesting. It cannot offer the same breadth of vegetables, meat, fish or basic meal ingredients as a supermarket, and there is little reason why it should try. The relevant strength in the retailer research is much narrower: an identifiable organic pantry that sits inside a drugstore visit.
Its 60% result therefore raises a different question. Perhaps a retailer does not need to cover every possible healthy-food need to be recognised in the category. It may be enough for the part it does offer to have a clear role in the wider reason people already come through the door.
The joint win by SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC points in a similar direction from the other end of the market. Both are food retailers, but their operating models are very different. E'LECLERC combines specialist choice with substantial fresh-food departments, while the SPOŁEM evidence includes fresh food, own production, local suppliers and specialist healthy or organic propositions in individual cooperatives. Their equal 65% result makes the idea of one winning Healthy Food model less convincing.
What seems to matter is not simply whether qualifying products are present. Shoppers also have to understand where those products fit in the store and why they belong there. A smaller range with a clear purpose may be easier to recognise than a much larger collection spread across several categories without an obvious shape.
That becomes especially important as the number of possible 'healthy' claims keeps growing. Organic, protein-rich, plant-based, less processed, free-from, functional and other propositions can all answer real customer needs, but they do not automatically belong with equal strength in every retail format.
Not every trend belongs on every shelf
Retail eventually brings the discussion back to a very physical constraint: there is only so much shelf space.
During another October Club of 369 discussion, a participant from another drugstore was asked why the business had not followed ROSSMANN further into food. The answer was refreshingly practical. Food would take space from categories closer to the retailer's main reason for being, while the company saw more opportunity in developing its core drugstore, perfumery and professional beauty offer.
That decision is as relevant as deciding what to add. Retailers can easily find arguments for expanding into the next trend. More organic products, more protein, more plant-based alternatives, more functional ingredients and more products for specific diets may all look attractive in isolation. Each also makes a claim on space, stock, communication and management attention, while potentially making the proposition harder rather than easier for shoppers to understand.
The right answer will therefore be different for different retailers. A supermarket may need broad fresh-food competence before a specialist health offer becomes meaningful. A discounter can make organic food part of an affordable everyday basket. A drugstore may earn recognition with a much narrower pantry range that makes sense beside the rest of what it sells. None needs to become the other.
The harder decision is choosing which healthier-food needs genuinely belong in the retailer's proposition and then making those choices visible often enough to become familiar. Products that appear once in a promotion or disappear between branches may be perfectly good products without ever creating a clear reason for shoppers to associate the retailer with Healthy Food.
That leaves a more useful set of questions than simply asking what healthy products should be added. Which healthier choices should this retailer make especially easy to find and understand? Which of those choices fit the shopping mission strongly enough to deserve scarce space? Can shoppers rely on finding the same idea again next week or in another branch? And, just as importantly, which attractive trends should the retailer deliberately leave to somebody else?
Those questions take the conversation beyond assortment. They are really about choosing what the retailer wants to be good at, then making that choice clear enough for shoppers to notice in ordinary shopping. We will continue exploring that challenge through the Club of 369 and at Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027 in Warsaw on 13-14 April 2027.
Key takeaways
Healthy-food recognition can come from very different stores. SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC tied at 65% in 2026. ROSSMANN, a drugstore with a narrower food offer, scored 60%. Shoppers can recognise a useful healthy-food range without seeing a full supermarket selection.
Healthier choices can fit into familiar food shopping. ALDI climbed fourteen places as its score rose from 32% to 61%. Its fresh-food displays near the first aisle and its organic range of familiar foods show how the offer can fit an ordinary visit.
Sometimes the smartest shelf decision is to leave something out. Every new product takes space and attention. A retailer must choose which healthier-food needs fit its shoppers, then make those choices easy to understand and find week after week.
RETAIL CHAMPION 2026 | EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING | HEALTHY FOOD
Making Healthy Food Easy to Choose
Why a strong offer has to fit the way people already shop.
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
The 2026 Healthy Food results contain a useful surprise. ROSSMANN, a drugstore rather than a supermarket, scores 60%, only five percentage points behind the joint Champions, SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC, both at 65%. That alone makes it difficult to describe Healthy Food as a competition over who has the biggest fresh-food department or the widest organic range. Very different retailers can apparently give shoppers a strong sense that healthy food belongs in their offer.
The way YouGov measures the category helps explain why. Shoppers for whom a healthy offer matters are asked whether the store has a good offer of healthy food, while the supporting questions range from BIO or organic products to unprocessed food, fresh meat and fish, fruit and vegetables, and produce from local suppliers. Healthy Food therefore reaches from the ordinary ingredients of a meal to much more explicitly signposted choices.
That creates a practical retail question. When does a collection of relevant products become an offer that shoppers can actually recognise, understand and use?
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
Healthy food starts with ordinary food
For a supermarket shopper, healthier eating does not necessarily begin in a specialist aisle. It may begin with vegetables for dinner, fruit for breakfast, fresh fish, meat, bread or ingredients that require very little explanation. Before the shopper thinks about an organic label, a protein claim or a particular diet, the store still has to work as a place to buy food.
An October Club of 369 In-Store discussion brought that basic role of fresh food into focus. One participant described fruit, vegetables and other fresh products as so important to the grocery mission that shoppers may not even consider a food store if the fresh offer is missing. That is a practitioner view rather than a conclusion from the Retail Champion study, but it helps explain why Healthy Food cannot be separated too neatly from normal food shopping.
ALDI provides a useful example. In its Compact 2.0 and Urban formats, fresh products are placed at the beginning of the first aisle. Its expanded BIO range also contains familiar foods such as oat bread, pickled cucumbers, beetroot juice and sauerkraut. These are not products that require shoppers to adopt an unfamiliar way of eating; they can simply become another version of something already understood.
ALDI moved from 32% in 2025 to 61% in 2026 and received the Healthy Food Biggest Progress recognition after gaining fourteen places in the ranking. The result does not tell us which individual change produced that movement, but the proposition itself is revealing. Fresh food and a more explicit organic range have been made part of the same everyday shop rather than treated as a separate world for a specialist customer.
The distinctions still matter. Fresh does not automatically mean healthy, just as organic, plant-based, local and free-from do not mean the same thing. A useful offer helps shoppers navigate those differences without asking them to turn an ordinary trip to the store into a nutrition research project.
The offer has to make sense in this store
ROSSMANN makes the next part of the story particularly interesting. It cannot offer the same breadth of vegetables, meat, fish or basic meal ingredients as a supermarket, and there is little reason why it should try. The relevant strength in the retailer research is much narrower: an identifiable organic pantry that sits inside a drugstore visit.
Its 60% result therefore raises a different question. Perhaps a retailer does not need to cover every possible healthy-food need to be recognised in the category. It may be enough for the part it does offer to have a clear role in the wider reason people already come through the door.
The joint win by SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC points in a similar direction from the other end of the market. Both are food retailers, but their operating models are very different. E'LECLERC combines specialist choice with substantial fresh-food departments, while the SPOŁEM evidence includes fresh food, own production, local suppliers and specialist healthy or organic propositions in individual cooperatives. Their equal 65% result makes the idea of one winning Healthy Food model less convincing.
What seems to matter is not simply whether qualifying products are present. Shoppers also have to understand where those products fit in the store and why they belong there. A smaller range with a clear purpose may be easier to recognise than a much larger collection spread across several categories without an obvious shape.
That becomes especially important as the number of possible 'healthy' claims keeps growing. Organic, protein-rich, plant-based, less processed, free-from, functional and other propositions can all answer real customer needs, but they do not automatically belong with equal strength in every retail format.
Not every trend belongs on every shelf
Retail eventually brings the discussion back to a very physical constraint: there is only so much shelf space.
During another October Club of 369 discussion, a participant from another drugstore was asked why the business had not followed ROSSMANN further into food. The answer was refreshingly practical. Food would take space from categories closer to the retailer's main reason for being, while the company saw more opportunity in developing its core drugstore, perfumery and professional beauty offer.
That decision is as relevant as deciding what to add. Retailers can easily find arguments for expanding into the next trend. More organic products, more protein, more plant-based alternatives, more functional ingredients and more products for specific diets may all look attractive in isolation. Each also makes a claim on space, stock, communication and management attention, while potentially making the proposition harder rather than easier for shoppers to understand.
The right answer will therefore be different for different retailers. A supermarket may need broad fresh-food competence before a specialist health offer becomes meaningful. A discounter can make organic food part of an affordable everyday basket. A drugstore may earn recognition with a much narrower pantry range that makes sense beside the rest of what it sells. None needs to become the other.
The harder decision is choosing which healthier-food needs genuinely belong in the retailer's proposition and then making those choices visible often enough to become familiar. Products that appear once in a promotion or disappear between branches may be perfectly good products without ever creating a clear reason for shoppers to associate the retailer with Healthy Food.
That leaves a more useful set of questions than simply asking what healthy products should be added. Which healthier choices should this retailer make especially easy to find and understand? Which of those choices fit the shopping mission strongly enough to deserve scarce space? Can shoppers rely on finding the same idea again next week or in another branch? And, just as importantly, which attractive trends should the retailer deliberately leave to somebody else?
Those questions take the conversation beyond assortment. They are really about choosing what the retailer wants to be good at, then making that choice clear enough for shoppers to notice in ordinary shopping. We will continue exploring that challenge through the Club of 369 and at Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027 in Warsaw on 13-14 April 2027.
Key takeaways
Healthy-food recognition can come from very different stores. SPOŁEM and E'LECLERC tied at 65% in 2026. ROSSMANN, a drugstore with a narrower food offer, scored 60%. Shoppers can recognise a useful healthy-food range without seeing a full supermarket selection.
Healthier choices can fit into familiar food shopping. ALDI climbed fourteen places as its score rose from 32% to 61%. Its fresh-food displays near the first aisle and its organic range of familiar foods show how the offer can fit an ordinary visit.
Sometimes the smartest shelf decision is to leave something out. Every new product takes space and attention. A retailer must choose which healthier-food needs fit its shoppers, then make those choices easy to understand and find week after week.
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Explore more insights from Retail Champion
Read the full 2026 report and discover how retail, consumer goods and FMCG professionals can become part of the Club of 369.
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Explore more insights from Retail Champion
Read the full 2026 report and discover how retail, consumer goods and FMCG professionals can become part of the Club of 369.
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Explore more insights from Retail Champion
Read the full 2026 report and discover how retail, consumer goods and FMCG professionals can become part of the Club of 369.
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Explore more insights from Retail Champion
Read the full 2026 report and discover how retail, consumer goods and FMCG professionals can become part of the Club of 369.