Kroger Health Announces Collaboration with Performance Kitchen® to Offer Medically Tailored Meals

Kroger Health, the healthcare division of The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), is announcing its collaboration with Performance Kitchen® to offer medically tailored meals (MTMs). This will be the first time Kroger Health is offering evidence-based, registered dietitian approved meals that will offer nutrition intervention for people who are living with various health conditions including diabetes, heart disease and cancer. MTMs are created to meet the specific needs of individuals and may significantly improve a person's overall health and wellness while providing access to nutritious foods.

"We believe in empowering people with resources to help them make healthy choices that will deliver the best outcomes for them," said James Kirby, chief commercial officer, Kroger Health. "Offering MTMs allows us an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to supporting individuals on their wellness journeys, while providing a personalized approach to help them transform their health. Through better options and access, we are assisting people in improving their quality of life, disease prevention and management."

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A recent evidence review and national simulation modeling study by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University estimated that MTM programs could help prevent 1.6 million hospitalizations and save health insurers $13.6 billion across the country in one year after paying for the cost of food. Over 10 years, the healthcare costs savings from MTM program participants where they receive 10 MTMs per week for eight months were estimated to reach $185.1 billion, on top of the cost of the MTMs.

Performance Kitchen® and Kroger Health have strategic initiatives that focus on implementing Food as Medicine into people's' daily lifestyles. Those initiatives played a critical role in offering meals that are crafted to meet nutritional standards while considering the needs of increasingly diverse populations and the inclusion of culturally relevant foods. The Performance Kitchen® and Kroger Health MTMs include options such as Chicken Dijon with Kale, Moroccan Style Chicken with Quinoa, Vegetable Chickpea Curry, and Salmon Pasta. Kroger Health is able to pair the MTMs with preexisting Kroger Health services such as virtual appointments with registered dietitians and access to healthy groceries for a holistic approach to improving nutrition security and patient outcomes. 

Performance Kitchen's team of chefs, doctors, and registered dietitians focuses on delivering nutritionally balanced meals by using high quality proteins, full servings of vegetables, healthy fats, whole grains and fiber, while limiting sodium and added sugar. The meals are frozen, single serve and ready to heat, making them convenient for people who are concerned about the amount of time it takes to prepare and cook a healthy meal. All Performance Kitchen® meals crafted for the collaboration are also approved by Kroger Health registered dietitians.

Taylor Newman, PhD, RDN, director of nutrition, Kroger Health, explained that the meals are one of the ways Kroger Health is encouraging people to make small, incremental changes that could support meaningful outcomes. "MTMs help us achieve our goal of making sure people have access to food that helps them feel their best and improve their health," she said. "While the meals are personalized for an individual's specific health condition, we're also proud to offer a variety of culturally diverse recipes and flavors to make sure everyone's needs are met."

"We're excited to work with Kroger Health in our unified goal of empowering the country to live healthier lives through food," said Mark Walker, Chairman and CEO of Performance Kitchen®. "In a country where we spend $4.3 trillion on sick care annually, states and insurance companies that have begun offering millions of Americans these new meal benefits, along with organizations like Kroger Health who are making these benefits available, should be celebrated. Together, we are pioneering a new horizon of preventative care through nutritious food."

The collaboration with Performance Kitchen® is the latest initiative from Kroger Health's Food as Medicine platform, which comes after the release of SuperWIN, a retail-based randomized controlled trial, and the company's participation in the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.