Mariano’s Fresh Market Adopts NuVal

Mariano’s Fresh Market, a banner of Roundy’s Inc., now offers the the NuValtm Nutritional Scoring System to its customers. The system gives foods a score from 1 to 100, with a high score indicating a highly nutritious item. Scores are posted on shelves and signs featuring the system’s signature blue hexagon throughout Mariano’s stores, enabling shoppers to compare the overall nutrition of various products. NuVal currently has more than 90,000 foods scored in its database, with more being added on a weekly basis.

“Our goal at Mariano’s is to help our customers shop well, eat well and live well,” explained Robert Mariano, chairman and CEO of Milwaukee-based Roundy’s. “We believe NuVal helps us achieve that goal by helping our customers find the nutritional value in more than 21,000 products on our store shelves.”

Roundy’s, which operates 155 grocery stores and 90 pharmacies under the Pick ’n Save, Copps, Rainbow, Metro Market and Mariano’s banners in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois and has more than 17,000 employees, plans to roll out the system in additional locations this year.

“For years, consumers have wanted an answer to a simple question: ‘what foods are more nutritious?’” said NuVal general manager Mike Nugent. “With NuVal, they can get that answer. No matter what part of the store they’re in, consumers can always look for a more nutritious option.”

NuVal scores are calculated for a broad variety of categories, including meat, seafood, poultry, salty snacks, milk, yogurt, vegetables (fresh, frozen and canned), cereal, bread, cookies, soft drinks, and crackers.

Other retailers that have launched the system in their stores include Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, Meijer, Brookshire Grocery Co., Big Y, Skogen’s Festival Foods, Coborn’s, Food City and United Supermarket stores, with more U.S. grocery chains slated to introduce the system in 2011.

NuVal is a joint venture formed in 2008 by Skokie, Ill.-based Topco Associates LLC, and Griffin Hospital in New Haven, Conn.