Brattleboro Food Co-op Builds a trusted shopping experience with personalized health & sustainability labeling in-store

Meet Brattleboro Food Co-op

Located in Brattleboro, VT, The Brattleboro Food Co-op has been feeding southeastern Vermont for over 45 years with an emphasis on local and natural foods. Today, the 15,000 SF Brattleboro Food Co-op is cooperatively owned by over 9,000 community members and led by General Manager, Lee Bradford, who brings 25+ years of industry experience, most recently as VP of Sales and Customer Experience for C&S Wholesale Grocers.One of the ways Brattleboro Food Co-op distinguishes itself from its competitors is the highly personalized supportive community-focused experience that shoppers have in-store. From a deeply knowledgeable deli team, to store tours for new members, and cooking classes open to the public, the Brattleboro Food Co-op constantly strives to improve the shopping experience and support the health of its growing community.

The Problem

Lee and his team wanted a way to help customers easily find the best products for their health needs and values while shopping in-store, with a solution that is easy to maintain and highlights the many great options available. Brattleboro Food Co-op prints all their own shelf labels and was transitioning POS systems from Loc SMS to ECRS Catapult. They needed a solution that did not depend on ECRS Catapult to integrate nor on them to print new shelf labels, but was compatible with ECRS Catapult if they chose to integrate in the future.

Brattleboro Food Co-op's Goals

  1. Reduce existing time and complexity of maintaining multiple health labels in store. They were struggling to maintain multiple tags (Organic, Gluten-Free, Local, Non-GMO, Vegan, WIC Approved) and had requests to add more.

  2. Help customers understand why Brattleboro Food Co-op is sometimes more expensive than conventional supermarkets in the area–by validating their products are healthier &/or more sustainable, and by highlighting the many healthy and sustainable foods they sell.

  3. Support their health-conscious and eco-conscious shoppers with a science-based health & sustainability product labeling system.

The Solution

With GreenChoice’s GCTags, Brattleboro Food Co-op has made its in-store shopping experience more personalized and transparent than ever.The GCTagsGCTags give customers instant access to dietary, health, and climate impact info on products while they shop in your store, providing unparalleled product transparency so they can easily make healthy, climate-friendly choices.Next to products’ shelf labels, customers can see QR-enabled shelf tags with simple GreenScores® (from 1-100) representing a food product’s health & climate impact. The color-coded GreenScore® rating system follows a traffic light pattern so that users immediately know which choices are better for them and the planet. For customers who want more info, they can scan the GCTag’s QR code with any smartphone camera, and instantly see the dietary preferences the product matches or conflicts with, ingredient-level information for why the product received the rating it did, and suggestions for healthy, climate-friendly alternatives available in the store. 

The Implementation

  1. GreenChoice matched 60% of the Brattleboro Food Co-op’s active product catalog with the GreenChoice Database of product dietary, wellness, and values attributes and GreenScore® ratings.

  2. GreenChoice presented a match analysis report, showcasing highest and lowest rated categories and coverage by sub-category. The team then selected product categories for tagging, targeting those with high match rates and high complexity for shoppers.

  3. GreenChoice designed GCTags for Brattleboro Food Co-op shelves, printed, and placed GCTags in-store.4. GreenChoice provided a plug-and-play marketing package, including printing and placing in-store signage and providing collateral that enabled BFC to easily promote across all digital channels online and in-store. Worked with the BFC team to tailor messaging to their customers and garner local press coverage.

Brattleboro Food Co-op making the most of GCTags

GreenChoice’s science-based GreenScore® ratings build trust in Brattleboro Food Co-op’s large selection of natural and organic foods by highlighting and validating the many nutritious, minimally processed, climate-friendly products they offer. In fact, Brattleboro Food Co-op management was very excited to learn they do not carry any products that fall within the lowest GreenScore® tier–exemplifying their commitment to health and sustainability and sourcing the best foods. Brattleboro Food Co-op employees now answer customers’ many questions about product attributes with ease and guide customers to scan a product’s GCTag to instantly see if it matches their dietary needs and values. From Lee’s perspective, the QR-code-enabled GCTags are about giving their customers of all dietary needs and lifestyle values a seamless omni-channel experience that supports them with the information they need at their fingertips to purchase with confidence.

“I ended up making purchases of two products I had never purchased before based on the ratings.”JoEllen T.Long-time Brattleboro Food Co-op Customer

The Results

  • 2,000 SKUS TAGGED including snacks, pantry, and frozen.

  • 9.2 NET PROMOTER SCORE from customers.

  • 94%OF SHOPPERS want GCTags on more products in the store.

"What really appealed to me about this was the ability to scan and go very deep. As a consumer, you don’t have a lot of time to sit around and do research on everything that you’re going to buy. Knowing that you can go into a store and see a score that makes those choices easy for you really excited me, both as a shopper and the store’s general manager." - Lee BradfordGENERAL MANAGER, BRATTLEBORO FOOD CO-OP & FORMER-VP OF SALES, C&S WHOLESALE GROCERS