NuVal Comes to King Kullen
King Kullen Grocery Co., Inc. has introduced the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System in all 45 of its Long Island and Staten Island stores. The Bethpage, N.Y.-based grocer is the first supermarket chain in the New York metropolitan area to team up with NuVal. The official launch took place at a press conference held at King Kullen’s Commack, N.Y., store and attended by company officials and NuVal founder Dr. David Katz.
“Implementing the NuVal scoring system is the most ambitious step we’ve taken in 80 years to promote nutritious eating,” noted King Kullen co-president Brian C. Cullen, whose grandfather, Michael J. Cullen, founded chain in 1930. “For the first time ever, shoppers can walk down the aisles of their local King Kullen store and receive easy-to-follow guidance that allows them to make informed food choices and improve the nutritional value of their diets.”
Added King Kullen co-president J. Donald Kennedy, “By putting NuVal scores on our shelves, we’re giving our shoppers the ability to instantly find and ‘trade up’ to more nutritious items within each food category.”
According to Katz, a nationally recognized authority on nutrition, weight control, and the prevention of chronic disease: “The NuVal Nutritional Scoring System was developed in response to America’s troubling health trends, including the rapidly rising rates of obesity and diabetes in both the adult and child populations.”
Based on recommendations from the USDA dietary guidelines and Institute of Medicine Dietary Reference Intakes, the system ranks all foods between 1 and 100 according to a scientific algorithm that takes into account more than 30 nutrients, among them carbohydrates, protein, fat, fiber, vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. A high score indicates a high level of nutrition. NuVal scores are posted next to the product price on shelf tags featuring the system’s trademark blue hexagon, and on in-store signage. Other retail adopters of the system include Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, Meijer, Brookshire Grocery Co., Big Y, Skogen’s Festival Foods, Coborn’s, Food City, Mariano’s Fresh Market and United Supermarket stores, with more U.S. retail chains scheduled to introduce the system to their customers in 2011.
Braintree, Mass.-based NuVal is a joint venture formed in 2008 by Skokie, Ill.-based Topco Associates LLC, and Griffin Hospital in New Haven, Conn.
Recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as America's first supermarket, King Kullen employs more than 4,000 people and operates 45 eponymous stores and four Wild by Nature markets on New York’s Long Island and Staten Island.