Key Messages for Employees 

Created by the FMI Foundation, National Family Meals Month™, launched in September 2015, is a nationwide event designed to bring grocers together to advocate for the benefits of family meals and underscore the role grocers play in helping families create and share more meals at home.

• With a collective and coordinated message, we’re joining with grocers nationwide to encourage families to share one more meal at home per week, reminding them that easy, healthy mealtime solutions can be found in nearly every supermarket aisle.

• Grocers, like us, are the solution to the mealtime dilemma faced by modern, time-strapped families of all shapes and sizes.
• We offer an expanded assortment of mealtime solutions that take the stress out of planning and preparing family meals: pre-prepped fresh ingredients, delicious readymade entrees, wholesome heat-and-eat dishes and much more.

Researchers, health experts and popular media are endorsing and promoting the lifelong benefits of family meals.

• Numerous studies show that home-cooked meals nourish the spirit, brain and health of all family members.
• Regular family meals are linked to the kinds of outcomes that we all want for our children: higher grades and self-esteem, healthier eating habits and less risky behavior.
• There’s clear evidence the structure of a meal can heavily influence a child’s long-term health. Kids and teens that share meals with their family three or more times per week are significantly less likely to be overweight, more likely to eat healthy foods and less likely to have eating disorders. Source: J. Berge, “The Protective Role of Family Meals for Youth Obesity: 10-year Longitudinal Association. 2014
• With each additional family meal shared each week, adolescents are less likely to show symptoms of depression, less likely to use or abuse drugs and less likely to engage in delinquent acts. Sources: Meier, A. & Musick, K. Variation in Associations Between Family Dinners and Adolescent Well-Being, Journal of Marriage and Family, 2014. Hammonds, A.J. & Fiese, B.A. Is Frequency of Shared Meals Related to the Nutritional Health of Children and Adolescents? Pediatrics 2011
• A 2014 study shows that children who grow up sharing family meals are more likely to exhibit prosocial behavior as adults, such as sharing, fairness and respect. Source: De Backer, Charlotte, JS, “Our” food versus “my” food. Investigating the relation between childhood shared food practices and adult prosocial behavior in Belgium, Appetite, 2014

September, back-to-school season, is the perfect time to encourage and help shoppers commit to sharing one more family meal at home per week.

• With the start of a new school year, parents are ready and willing to make a renewed commitment to healthy meals that nourish their kids’ brains and help them flourish.
• As families juggle their new school routines and fall activities, we want them to turn to us, their grocer, for help. As a grocer, offering solutions across the aisles, we’re the ultimate ally to help bring family mealtime back to the table.

People are hungry for help in the kitchen. Shopper studies show that 81% of parents buy items with minimal prep time. Sources: FMI Shopping for Health, 2013; FMI: U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends; 2014; Hartman Group, 2013

• Parents choose convenience when time is limited, and they recognize it. They want us to provide them with convenient solutions requiring minimal prep and cleanup time to help them make family mealtime happen at home. For many time-starved shoppers, convenience is as important as nutrition.
• 63% of Americans decide what to eat less than an hour before eating. (Hartman Group, 2013)

We’re helping shoppers eat well.

• We’re committed to helping make shared meals at home fun, affordable and healthier.
• We’re providing shoppers with wellness programs that help customers improve their diet and overall health.
• We hire and train knowledgeable staff to help shoppers locate the products they need to meet their unique dietary and nutrition needs.
• Our in-store dietitians and wellness experts are available to help shoppers interpret complicated nutrition labels.

We’re leveraging social media this September to activate shopper engagement during National Family Meals Month™, and to get families interacting about family mealtime.

• We’ll share family meals focused content in social channels throughout September, including the National Family Meals Month™ designated hashtag, #familymealsmonth. [insert your social media handles]
• We’ll encourage consumers to raise their oven mitts and pledge to commit to one more family meal per week.

We want selfies with the hashtag #familymealsmonth to go viral as shoppers post their “Raise a Mitt” pledge photos, mealtime pictures, favorite recipes and shopping tips to their social media feeds.