Albertsons launches digital platform to promote customer health

Sincerely Health lets users set goals and gives recommendations based on their Health Score

By now we're all used to major retailers like Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart being, ostensibly, healthcare companies; they've been in the space for decades at this point and it's core part of their business.  More recently, though, a new crop of companies have been making inroads into the health and wellness space: grocery stores. 

This week, Albertsons, which owns Safeway, Vons, Shaw’s, Jewel-Osco, Acme, and Tom Thumb, among others, announced the launch of Sincerely Health, a new digital health and wellness platform with the aim of helping customers make informed choices regarding food, physical activity, sleep, and mindfulness.

To use Sincerely Health, users start by filling out a questionnaire that measures their Health Score, which based on seven dimensions of well-being, such as age, gender, nutrition, lifestyle choices, and mental health. Users can also link their activity trackers, such as Apple Health, Fitbit and Google Fit, to the service, and also log their vitals and medication regimen.

Once they've done this, customers can then set goals for themselves to improve their Health Score, and track their progress. They will alo receive recommendations, which they can use to earn rewards: users earn additional points customers when they set a health goal or respond to a health recommendation. 

Sincerely Health also offers an online pharmacy tools to help customers manage their prescriptions, schedule vaccine appointments, and connect with general practitioners via telehealth.

In addition, customers who join Sincerely Health from their grocery app will receive an initial incentive of up to $25 off an upcoming grocery purchase.

Sincerely Health, which is currently accessible on 16 of Albertson's grocery apps and websites, was built in collaboration with healthcare providers, insurance companies, and technology organizations which, as the company put it, "share a broader purpose to improve the health and well-being of every community they serve."

“We are introducing Sincerely Health with a singular intention to improve lives,” Omer Gajial, Chief Digital Officer and EVP Health at Albertsons Cos, said in a statement. 

“As a grocery and pharmacy retailer committed to the health and wellness of our communities, we are empowering customers to have a connected and personalized view of their health across food, nutrition, activity, mental well-being and pharmacy services, enabling them to make more informed choices.”

Albertson's is not the first grocery company to launch such a program: last year, delivery service Instacart debuted Instacart Health, which involved a series of new products, partnerships, and policy commitments, with the aim of making sure that every person has access to nutritious food.

Among those initiatives was Fresh Funds, which allow organizations, including nonprofits, insurance companies, and employers, to provide funds for people to buy nutritious food from grocery retailers on the Instacart App, as well as Care Carts, which are designed to give healthcare providers and caregivers the ability to order groceries on behalf of someone else; for example, a clinician might want to deliver groceries for a patient’s prescribed meal plan.

The company also launched Health Tags, which let customers view up to 23 item-level labels, including low-salt, low-sugar, keto, gluten-free, while they shop on Instacart.