Safeway Inc. (NYSE:SWY) and Warner Bros. Consumer Products announced a
partnership today that will create a better-for-you line of food
products for children, uniting flavor and nutrition. Through a licensing
agreement with Safeway®,
the Warner Bros. animated Looney Tunes characters will be featured on
the new Eating Right Kids™
line of food and beverages, to be sold at Safeway.
Eating Right Kids, an extension of the successful Eating Right™
adult line, will launch later this year with select products arriving on
store shelves this summer. The line will initially be carried at over
1,700 Safeway locations throughout the United States and Canada. In
early 2009, Eating Right Kids will also be available nationally via the
Better Living Brands™ Alliance.
Each product in the multi-category, competitively priced line will
feature such world-renowned Looney Tunes characters as Bugs Bunny,
Tweety, Taz, Sylvester, Wile E. Coyote, Roadrunner, Marvin the Martian
and Daffy Duck.
Eating Right Kids is the first broad product line to feature
entertainment characters and be dedicated solely to a healthier eating
philosophy. Parents will now have an ally helping them show their kids
that better-for-you foods can taste good and be fun at the same time.
“The Warner Bros. Consumer Products
partnership will allow us to extend the Eating Right brand to a line of
products that will appeal to children, and at the same time give parents
the comfort that these products are healthier choices,”
said Mike Minasi, Safeway President, Marketing. “Integrating
such well-recognized characters into our brand architecture will make
the line more attractive to our target audience and augment the line’s
success.”
“This partnership with Safeway allows us to
utilize the Looney Tunes characters’ enduring
popularity with kids and teens to promote a lifestyle choice that’s
healthier for them,” said Barry Meyer,
Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. “Using our
iconic characters as ambassadors of health and fitness, the Eating Right
Kids program helps simplify good nutrition for parents and their
children.”
The broad product line will feature more than 100 items across 30
categories including breakfast foods, portable meals, dairy, snacks, and
beverages. Products are formulated based on the most recent dietary
recommendations and regulations from several federal and state agencies,
including Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Department
of Agriculture (USDA), the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, and the
California School Nutritional Guidelines SB12.
The product packaging will retain the Eating Right design architecture
while taking full advantage of the personalities associated with the
beloved Looney Tunes characters. The Looney Tunes characters will serve
as ‘Mother’s
Helper,’ making it easy for moms to spot
better-for-you food and beverage items for their kids that taste great.
The characters will also be integrated into the Eating Right “Spot
Your Needs™”
easy-reference system, which helps customers quickly identify the
nutritional benefits of each product.
“As our nation continues to struggle with the
issue of childhood obesity, Safeway has taken a leadership role in
providing parents and consumers with food products that are healthier
for children, and we believe in this philosophy,”
said Brad Globe, President, Warner Bros. Worldwide Consumer Products. “Not
only will the Eating Right Kids line provide a healthier eating solution
for kids and their parents, but we’ve taken
the additional step across the entire Looney Tunes product line in North
America to ensure that the majority of food products featuring the
characters meet this better-for-you standard and will be exclusively
available through the Eating Right Kids line.”
Today’s announcement is the latest component
in a larger, ongoing Safeway initiative focused on providing health and
wellness solutions to its customers. The Eating Right line launched in
April 2007 with products produced primarily for adults and now has
nearly 200 items in more than 30 categories. The philosophy behind the
brand is to offer healthier eating solutions across multiple categories
with a “Spot Your Needs”
easy reference system so consumers can easily identify foods that meet
their individual requirements. Safeway also developed FoodFlex, an
innovative online nutrition tool that provides personalized information
about food, nutrition and alternative grocery options. Last year,
Safeway launched its Good to Know program, an in-store and online guide
to food nutrition. Good to Know signs are posted throughout stores and
on www.safeway.com showing the
health benefits of certain products, including the cancer-fighting
benefits. For example, the Good to Know product signs on broccoli and
tomato sauce note that these foods may help reduce the risk of certain
types of cancer, including breast cancer.
About Safeway - www.safeway.com
Safeway Inc. is a Fortune 100 company and one of the largest food and
drug retailers in North America, based on sales. The company operates
1,740 stores in the United States and western Canada and had annual
sales of $42 billion in 2007. Safeway supports a broad range of
charitable and community programs and in 2007 donated more than $172
million to important causes, such as cancer research, education, food
banks and programs focused on assisting people with disabilities. The
company's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under
the symbol SWY.
About Warner Bros. Consumer Products
Warner Bros. Consumer Products, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, is
one of the leading licensing and retail merchandising organizations in
the world.
About Better Living Brands Alliance
Better Living Brands Alliance is a group of world-class food and
beverage manufacturing, marketing and distribution companies formed to
meet consumer demand and fuel consistent growth in consumption of
organic and health and wellness foods and beverages. The Better Living
Brands™ Alliance mission is to help consumers
live better lives everyday by offering brands that delight.
LOONEY TUNES and all related characters and elements are trademarks of
and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
(s08)
