Supermarket Savvy works hard on behalf of its readers. (Gold Award Winner).

Supermarket Savvy, tagged "Your resource for food & nutrition news & educational tools," won the 2002 Gold Award in The Newsletter on Newsletters' Newsletter Awards Competition because of "its plethora of useful information and bold, striking colors."

For $89 a year, subscribers receive the print edition every other month and an e-mail hot sheet in the intervening months. The newsletter is packed with dozens of articles, illustrations, charts, pertinent websites, and "Nutrition Facts" found on food labels--complemented by inserts, including food coupons.

While its design may first appear to be pretty "busy," it is well laid out and certainly easy to navigate for its regular readers.

The writing, too, is casual Background Editor-publisher Linda McDonald said, "Supermarket Savvy was started in 1988 by Leni Reed Nazare, a dietitian who started providing super-market tours in Dallas. Her first product was a Supermarket Tour Training Kit, and as this form of nutrition education became popular, the newsletter evolved. I took over the business in 1997.

"As a dietitian who started out with a private practice doing nutrition counseling, which quickly became stifling, I looked for other outlets for my nutrition expertise," she said. "I started providing programs for corporate wellness, working with restaurants, participating in restaurant guides and cookbooks, and eventually ended up consulting with food manufacturers.

"I learned along the way that I really enjoyed the challenge of developing nutrition education resources. Supermarket Savvy Information and Resource Service was a natural for me, although I had to learn the newsletter part of the business.

"Although the look of the newsletter has changed, the focus has stayed the same--providing health and culinary professionals with objective, balanced, and science-based information on new food products, food issues, trends, and educational resources."

Circulation

McDonald distributes about 1,000 newsletters each issue. "Many of our subscribers are hospitals," she said, "and other health care and wellness facilities where the newsletter is read by several health care professionals. Most of our subscribers are dietitians in consumer nutrition education.

"From surveys of our subscribers, we estimate that our information has the possibility of flowing through to around 100,000 consumers. This is a great benefit to the food manufacturers whose food products we review."

Promotion

McDonald said that Supermarket Savvy, which is funded totally by subscriptions, is marketed through health professional journals, newsletters, catalogs, and meetings. "The only lists we have used are from health professional organizations," she said.

The internet

"We have a new website, www.supermarketsavvy.com, and have just started offering electronic subscriptions.

"We also send out a bimonthly E-Savvy Sheet and provide our subscribers with a pass-protected section of the website where they can access and search back newsletters, a resource directory, market their services, access educational resources, and use the Virtual Supermarket in counseling.

"My goal is to be completely electronic in two years," Linda McDonald said, to which we can only add, "Go for it. It looks like you really know what you're doing."