Healthier food goals driving grocery shopping trends

As 2025 unfolds, a growing consumer focus on health and wellness is leading to increased shopper demand for healthier food choices from their grocery stores. Research from a recent 84.51° Consumer Digest found that the biggest changes most shoppers plan to make this year relate to healthy eating habits. According to retail data and shopping behaviors, they are prioritizing healthy food choices while striving to balance nutrition with value.

These shopper desires are creating actionable opportunities for brands to reach nutrition-conscious shoppers in meaningful ways. By connecting with consumers through engaging moments that inspire healthy choices, brands can create an impactful customer experience that helps them reach their goals whether they’re online grocery shopping or in the store.

Heathier snacking leads grocery shopping trends

Our January 2025 Consumer Digest found that consumers are looking to adjust their diets in the year ahead in many ways, from incorporating more fruits and vegetables to reducing their intake of fast food and making healthier meals at home. Our research also shows that healthy eating is defined in a variety of ways by individuals, including reading labels and tracking calories, eating fewer processed foods, avoiding added sugars and eating appropriate portion sizes.

At the same time customers are trying to make healthier food choices, they’re also looking to save money in the face of high food prices when grocery shopping. Our research reveals that only 41% of shoppers describe their current eating habits as healthy, and say the top challenges they face when striving for a healthier diet include cravings for unhealthy foods (69%), the cost of healthy foods (49%) and time (45%).

To overcome these challenges, shoppers say they’re planning to use a variety of strategies to adopt a healthier diet. Nearly half of respondents named healthier snacking as a priority, a tactic that might include eating more fruits and vegetables (66%), limiting processed foods (i.e., clean eating) (51%), and paying more attention to food labels (28%).

Opportunities to connect with shoppers

Armed with these insights, brands have many opportunities to activate marketing strategies that connect with nutrition-conscious and value-minded shoppers by creating a more valuable shopping experience along the path to purchase.

For example, brands can build long-term shopper engagement and loyalty through personalized coupons and promotions that drive brand awareness in complementary categories aligning with health strategies, such as hydration and reduced sugar. Our Consumer Digest research found that the top five foods that shoppers purchase in the same basket as value-added (i.e., pre-cut/pre-washed) vegetables include Mexican foods, dressings and dips, and tortillas and wraps – making all of these items good candidates for cross-promotion opportunities. Similarly, households that place a higher focus on nutrition are more likely to purchase sparkling water, which creates a rich opportunity for bundling offers that pair healthy snacks with these beverages.

These health-inspired insights can also be used to develop more actionable advertising. Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM), the retail media business of Kroger powered by 84.51˚, uses 84.51˚ data science and Kroger’s loyalty card program to help inspire consumers and connect them to brands through relevant messages and experiences. These might include health-oriented product listing ads that increase brand visibility in search during peak traffic periods, or social advertising that integrates KPM’s first-party retail data to provide consumers who are actively searching for healthy meal ideas with relevant ads.

Our retail media network also enables brands to optimize their Connected TV campaigns by applying purchase-based audiences to reach those nutrition-conscious shoppers. And because our research found that 57% of shoppers would like to receive nutrition information while shopping at a grocery store, brands can develop educational content that helps them make healthier decisions, such as offering resources and guidance for making balanced dietary choices that are inspired by product offerings.

Learn more about the role of healthier snacking in today’s grocery shopping trends

As brands adjust their grocery retail strategies to address the growing conversation around healthy items, it’s crucial for them to understand the tactics shoppers are adopting and the challenges they face when trying to maintain a healthy diet. Our Consumer Digest provides actionable insights into shopper purchasing behaviors and desires to help brands engage these shoppers by meeting their needs.

To learn more about how uncovering the gap between health aspirations and current habits presents opportunities for brands to connect with shoppers, download our infographic, “The healthy basket shift: How shoppers are rethinking food choices.”