Patty Guist, director of associate programs and services at Humana in Lousiville, Ky., was forced to raise prices because of rising costs. However, she decided to turn the price increase into a chance to encourage healthy behaviors by only increasing prices on unhealthy items.
Like many operators, Patty Guist, director of associate programs and services at 5,000-employee Humana in Lousiville, Ky., is dealing with having to raise her cafeteria’s prices. However, Guist is trying to change eating behaviors by focusing price increases on unhealthy items. “We’re actually doing two things. First, we’re expanding our Check Your Choices program, which is a program where we subsidize healthy items. We do that now primarily with snack items. We’re expanding it to have one subsidized entrée a day at each station. It’s anywhere from a 20% to 30% discount. The other thing we’re doing is, we’re going to focus any price increases on the unhealthy items. Items like french fries will have a bigger price increase than the salad bar. We are really going to try not to increase prices on the healthy items at all. We’re going to be doing a point of sale card that explains that costs are going up and that we want to continue to provide value for our associates, especially on healthier items. We found in our vending program, when we did something similar, we were able to change the eating habits of our folks. For example, we would charge less for baked chips than regular ones. There was about a 30% shift of people eating the healthier items because they were cheaper.”