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Meijer is rolling out what it hopes will be another helpful means for consumers to assess the nutritional quality of foods at the supermarket. NuVal assigns a score of 0-100 to food products based on a proprietary algorithm called ONQI (overall nutritional quality index) developed by top nutrition experts.

According to Dr. David Katz, the scientist behind ONQI / NuVal, the values of  30 nutrients in a food product are crunched in a formula that yields a final score. Nutrients to encourage, such as fiber and vitamin C, increase the score, while saturated fats and sugars reduce it.

As would be expected, vegetables and fruits score high, milk and meats lower, and most processed foods the lowest.

What you need to know:

We covered NuVal in detail when it launched several months ago,  commenting on both the positive and negative aspects of such a system.

On the bright side, the system provides a simple, intuative, front of label indication of a food’s health value.

On the other hand, there is an inherent conflict of interests between retailers and consumers. Most consumers, we assume, want to eat healthy. But retailers want to sell them as much as possible and at high margins. Unfortunately the most profitable products are processed foods (Soft drinks are a great example: water, colors and sugar – very profitable).The healthy foods, less processed, fruits vegetables, grains, and basics like milk and meats, do not carry a high profit margin. For a retailer, steering its customers to healthier products is then, essentially, like someone shooting himself in the foot.

Perhaps this is why NuVal, which hoped to have 15-20 retailers on board by now, can count Meijer only as its third partner, following limited launches at Hy-Vee and Price Chopper in January.

What to do at the supermarket:

Most Americans will have to wait till NuVal hits their local grocery store. So diligent shoppers will have to continue checking the ingredient lists and nutrition labels to make sure they know exactly what they are putting on their families’ plates.

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