At 1 o'clock pm, Fareway Stores in Spencer hosted a ribbon cutting to celebrate certification in becoming a Blue Zones Grocery Store||special8482||. The Spencer Fareway reached certification status after completing the required criteria as a part of the Blue Zones Project||special8482|| grocery store pledge.
Spencer Fareway is so excited to be the first to achieve the status of a certified Blue Zones Grocery Store. We would like to thank our local store manager, Karl Levisay, and his staff for helping us achieve this goal," said Reynolds W.Cramer, Executive Vice President, Fareway Stores. "We will continue to work diligently toward meeting Governor Branstad's goal to make Iowa the healthiest state in the nation. Spencer, Iowa is just the beginning."
Fareway has demonstrated their commitment by creating a healthier environment as well as offering opportunities for our customers to improve their well-being. Some of the completed pledge items include adding a Blue Zones Checkout Lane to encourage healthy choices, marking Blue Zones parking spaces situated near the back of the parking lot to promote moving naturally, re-calibrating the scales in the store for measuring fruit and veggie servings, distributing healthy recipes within the store and promoting healthy foods through sampling.
The Blue Zones Project is based on Blue Zones||special174|| principles developed by Dan Buettner, National Geographic explorer and author of The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest. Blue Zones employs evidence-based ways to help people live longer, better lives by taking a systematic, environmental approach to well-being, which focuses on optimizing policy, social networks and the built environments where people spend their time. Brought to Iowa through an innovative sponsorship between Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Healthways, the initiative encourages all Iowa communities to change their built environments to make the healthy choice, the easy choice.