Tesco: 66 points for Dave Lewis – No.24 – My Fit Lifestyle

Today is 43 (forty-three) days until Dave Lewis takes the helm at the UK’s biggest retailer. Grocery Insight are counting down to the start of his reign with an improvement point per day. Due to the growing nature of the list causing issues with our template, please click on Tesco to see all the posts containing the 66 ‘to do’ points. Today we consider a secondary health tier ‘My Fit Lifestyle’.

Launched with relatively little fanfare earlier in the year was ‘my fit lifestyle’ which is an eating plan designed to take on the might of Slimming World, Weight Watchers et al whilst locking in loyalty to Tesco.

The difference with ‘my fit’ is that trial stores (London at the minute) range the calorie controlled meals that make up the plan, helping customers to follow a diet that is easy to understand. You obviously can’t buy the ‘my fit’ branded products in other retailers, so it enhances the loyalty proposition.

The problem is that Tesco are well established in this arena, and as a result ‘my fit’ albeit at a trial stage struggles for cut through. Consider that Tesco has Health&Wellbeing, Diets (diets points to H&W now), Healthy Living in store and now ‘my fit lifestyle’ which could launch nationwide. Tesco need to back a horse and commit to it.

My Fit lifestyle is a different model entirely, bringing together a full diet plan, calorie controlled etc and selling the food for that plan within the store. A novel idea, one presumes that are branded products (weight watchers) that are good to eat on the plan so there is an opportunity for supplier tie in. Community rooms could be used for ‘groups’ a la Weight Watchers and away you go, there’s a decent business model there.

The issue is around wastage in some stores, its running high as fresh food is perishable and in these austere times, customers don’t want to commit £3/£4 to a ready meal they may / may not enjoy. My Fit comes with a decent number of SKU’s for the store and this adds complexity and on fresh foods – adds waste. Long term, this may impact the trial rollout  – typically sales are.

Health is an important category as discussed on the previous blog, its a gap in the discounters and a plan like this is a great idea. However the issue with Tesco is they believe they can take on the world despite there being established groups / plans / diets out there with happy customers. Ones that don’t rely on a local store having the range, or stock of the product, or not discontinuing certain lines, not to mention the cost (see below).

Dave Lewis will need to look at the entire Tesco Diets / Wellbeing / My Fit stable and decide which horse to back. Too many messages mean mixed signals for customers. Everyone knows what Slimming World do, My Fit, Diets (and the rest) is less clear.

So ive done 1 day of @Tesco “my fit lifestyle food plan” its bland food and would cost £240 a month to do! #tescoFAIL pic.twitter.com/pLztKjwi3t

— Bex Shiner ONLYFANS (@BexBB9) August 5, 2014