Whole Foods Teams Up with Headspace to Provide Recipes and Meditation
Whole Foods has joined forces with wellness and meditation app Headspace — because let’s be real, this year has taken a toll on all of us. The two companies will offer meditation exercises and an IGTV series called Food for Mood that is aimed at helping people “focus on mindful shopping, cooking, and eating.” The series runs until the end of March and offers customers a one-month free trial of Headspace Plus.
The IGTV series is hosted by chef, food, and welfare advocate Sophia Roe in collaboration with Whole Foods and nutritionist, chef, and author of This Is Your Brain On Food, Dr. Uma Naidoo. The recipes shared on IGTV are said to be “mood-brightening” and feature a food-filled conversation centered around how viewers can mindfully connect with food.
So far the series has included gluten-free baked berry crunch, and plans on recipes for seared scallops with jalapeño crema, green tea and coconut-poached halibut with sautéed kale, and turmeric tempeh with chamomile-steamed asparagus, according to Grocery Dive. The recipes for each video can be found online along with shopping lists that are chock-full of Whole Foods private label products.
Whole Foods’ partnership with Headspace taps into the health and wellness trends that have seen an uptick due to the pandemic. A recent survey by The Harris Poll — on behalf of Whole Foods — found that 85% of respondents would like to take steps to improve their overall well-being a year into the pandemic. 79 percent of consumers also said they want to learn to eat more mindfully.
Many other grocers have responded to this trend with new virtual health initiatives. Early last year, Giant Food launched weekly classes to promote health habits. The classes addressed concerns like heart-healthy eating, weight and disease management, and general healthy living and Weis Markets teamed up with telehealth platform Healthie that allowed customers to schedule virtual wellness visits with Weis’ registered dieticians.