How remote stores are paving the way for healthy stores, with Khia De Silva

Khia De Silva is the Nutrition Manager at the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA). In this episode Khia talks about working as a nutritionist embedded within a retail environment to support the implementation of the ALPA Health and Nutrition strategy across ALPA’s retail businesses in top end Australia.

We talk about balancing nutrition outcomes with financial viability of remote stores and Khia details Healthy Stores 2020, a sugar reduction strategy, within ALPA stores in collaboration with Monash University and Menzies School of Health that led to a reduction of 1.8 tonnes of sugar being purchased across 10 stores in 12 weeks whilst maintaining financial viability of stores. We also go into what other action is needed to support more affordable and accessible healthy food in remote stores.

Links to
- ALPA website, Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn
- Healthy Stores 2020 website

Contact Khia via LinkedIn

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CREDITS

Host: Sophie Wright-Pedersen

With thanks to Khia De Silva for her time and thoughts

The Foodies in the Field podcast would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was made, the Turrbal and Yuggera people, as well as the lands from where Khia was speaking and where you may be listening from today. We pay respects to elders both past and present and acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were the first foodies of this nation. 

Transcript

Sophie: [00:00:00] Hi. Welcome to Public Health Nutrition from Foodies in the Field, a podcast showcasing stories from passionate foodies about who they are and what they do. I'm Sophie Wright-Pedersen, your podcast host. And on today's show we have Khia de Silva, who is a nutrition manager at the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation, otherwise referred to as ALPA. If you've ever been curious about how a dietician could work within the remote store space, then this is the episode for you. In this episode, you can't help but notice Khia's passion for the remote store space, as she talks all about working to support the implementation of the ALPA's Health and nutrition strategy across ALPA's retail businesses in the top end of Australia. We chat about ways to balance nutrition outcomes with the financial viability of remote stores, which is always a key concern in these spaces. And we also go into what other action is needed to support more affordable and accessible healthy food in remote stores. 

Hi, Khia. Welcome to the show.

Khia: Thanks for having me, Sophie. 

Sophie: It's absolute pleasure. Now you are the nutrition manager at ALPA up in the top end of the Northern Territory. Just, I just wanted to start by asking what is ALPA and what do you do there as the nutrition manager? 

Khia: Sure. So ALPA stands for the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation, and we're one of the largest Aboriginal corporations in Australia and we've been running remote stores for 50 years. So this year's our 50th birthday. 

Sophie: Wow. 

Khia: So huge achievement. Um, ALPA is governed by a board of, um, directors from the six member communities in East Arnhem land. And so we're, we're, we're community owned and community led, um, which is just an amazing business model, um, to have community members making decisions for community members. It, we, so we operate stores at a non-for-profit, which means that the surpluses that are generated from those stores are reinvested back into those communities to support things like, uh, ceremonies, cultural ceremonies, um, education programs and health programs. And so my role falls under our, one of our health programs. So, um, our nutrition program, it's been going ALPA have had a health and nutrition strategy for 40 years, so it's been going for a long time, and my job really is to support our board with the implementation of the APLA health and nutrition policy, and support all of our stores and our retail teams to implement that policy at the store level so that customers are able to make healthy food, um, and drink choices while still maintaining choice. So when you walk into our stores, there's still unhealthy foods available, but it's about how we sell those and really not tempting people to buy it with promotions and, you know, being right in your face cuz it's high traffic. So what a really strong one, maintaining that choice as a, you know, human right. But yeah, supporting people away from those choices is a big thing that we focus. 

Sophie: Awesome. Um, back to like the, you know, the strategy and kind of the way that ALPA runs, who. You've obviously got the board of directors and, and you've got this strategy. Who kind of created that strategy or how, I mean, I know it's been around for 40 years, but has there been like a process of how that's been developed? Um, and I guess kind of how have you been involved in that in any way? 

Khia: Yeah, so I mean, I wish I was around 40 years ago to see what happened at the start. Um, but it was developed by the board of directors and I imagine at the time with the CEO of APLA. Um, and it was quite a simple strategy back in the 1980s, um, really focused. Still, but we still have those core principles, which are improving affordability of healthy foods and drinks, improving availability of healthy foods and drinks, and supporting our customers to make those healthy food and drink choices. So since the 1980s, It has adapted over time to be in line with, you know, the current dietary guidelines and any research around healthy retailing to guide people towards those healthy choices. So from my perspective, um, the board own our strategy and the store policy, and then at every quarter I meet with our board of directors, um, and we don't review our strategy and policy often cuz it becomes a, it's a huge job to then implement it. So we try and, you know, at least annually we'll have discussions around new policies that we, they might wanna consider to see whether it's, you know, acceptable from a, you know, community and customer acceptance level, whether it's feasible from a retail level, um, and once they've, [00:05:00] and whether it's gonna achieve those, you know, health goals. You know, is it gonna achieve a, you know, sugar reduction, for example. So our board make really big decisions, you know, big discussions about it, and then they sign off and then, and then my job is to roll it out across the business. So, so I'm there to help facilitate those conversations, but I'm not the one that makes the end decision, which I think is fantastic because it means that it's board led and, and then it flows down throughout the organization. Um, as opposed to me being just a little nutritionist in the organization trying to shout for nutrition changes. It's, it's never been that way. Like nutrition has been at the forefront of our board's mind since the 1980s because at the end of the day, the customers of our stores are our board's family. You know, they, they see the impact that our stores can have on people's consumption and ultimately people's health. And people wanna keep their family alive, so they're going to, you know, make those decisions to do that.

Sophie: Yeah. That's fantastic. And I was gonna ask on that, just like knowing that you're working in that kind of environment where they're stores and they're obviously not for profit, but they need to make you know, ends meet, how have you found like the balance of ensuring you know that the foods that are sold in the store are healthy foods, whilst also making sure that the store. You know, the ends being met, but also, like you mentioned as well, ensuring that people have the right to choose what foods that they, um, would like to.

Khia: Um, it's a really good question because often people don't consider the, the impact that it's gonna have and the financial viability of small stores in remote communities. So, you know, I've often, when I was a nutritionist outside, of ALPA when I was with a government organization, I would have doctors just saying, you know, you should go tell that store to take Coke off the shelf. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. Like. It's not, I'm not in that position to do that. But also, what is gonna be the implications if we do that? Um, is it potentially jeopardizing the viability of that store, which means that the whole store has to close its doors and there's no store open for that community, and it's a huge food security issue because the next door is a hundred, you know, plus kilometres away. So, yeah. Um, so I guess when we're thinking about policies, we're so privileged that we're part of a retail team, and so we will have those conversations about. Whether or not this is gonna have major impacts on the store viability with our retail team first before it goes to the board. Um, and you know, they might, our retail team might have some, some apprehensions about study, about strategies, yet we'll still take it to the board for them to make the decision. And where there is that little concern about whether it's gonna impact store viability, we don't just put it in straight away, we test the strategy and watch its impact from a, like whatever we're trying to achieve, whether it might be something about sugar reduction or say fruit and veg consumption. Um, see that it's achieving those goals and see what impact it's having on a, like a store viability.

Sophie: Yeah, and it sounds like such a, you know, like you say is it is a privilege, but it sounds like you've actually also. Allowed that to be fosters fostered as well. And, and it's really great to hear that. And I guess from your perspective, it's, you know, you have worked in a government or like a different context for people that are in those contexts still or, um, you know, aren't working in the retail environment. Do you have any suggestions for them when they are approaching, um, organizations like ALPA or even individual stores on how they could, could go about doing that when they're not embedded within that organisation? 

Khia: I think the first thing is that I'm, I'm very aware that as nutritionist, we don't get the skills needed to start having these conversations with stores from a university level. And I think that's a huge gap that needs to be addressed. And we've worked with. You know, people have been working in this space for a long time, like Julie Brimblecombe and Megan Ferguson to, to build education opportunities like professional development opportunities for nutritionist to increase their skills on how to work with stores. Because it's isn't just, you don't get taught it. And you know, I was working as a remote nutritionist for seven years. Before I joined ALPA and I thought I knew stores and then I got into this role and I was like, oh my gosh, I know nothing about stores. And you know, I've been with ALPA now for over four years and I still learn new things every day on how we can be supporting the stores to make changes that are gonna support customer purchasing behaviour. So I think the first thing that I would say to nutritionist is don't feel like you should know everything cause you haven't been given that opportunity to learn everything and reach out to those who have worked in this space. Because there's, there are people that have been working in this space for a long time who [00:10:00] are so, um, generous with their time to share that knowledge and, and start small and really understand that you are working with businesses and so you've, you know, you've gotta think about that financial viability, but, You know, and if the stores aren't, you know, if you wanna make big changes, that might be a bit scary for a store that's never done that. Like ALPA been on a 40-year nutrition journey, other stores haven't. So we can, we can make big, bold decisions around nutrition and ALPA because we have been doing it for so long and our organization isn't scared of nutrition. But if you are a store that's not even had this conversation then. Then walking in and like asking them to do something really big, cuz you've heard ALPA do it might not be the right way to go about it. Start small. Build those relationships with your store managers. Find out who's on the store board. Build those relationships first, you know, and, and then you can. You know, start slowly implementing things once you've got those relationships built. 

Sophie: I guess like obviously, oh no, obviously I should say, but, um, you've had the Healthy Stores 2020 project going on for, well, I'm guessing since 2020 or even maybe before, and I was just wondering if you could maybe give a bit of insight into, into that and kind of what it was all about and, and how it fitted into your work and, you know, how it came about and what's kind of happened from it, um, as well. 

Khia: Yeah, sure. So Healthy Stores 2020 actually started before I joined ALPA um, so conversations about this study happened, started I think in 2016, um, where ALPA had been involved in a number of studies with, you know, Menzies School of Health Research to test different strategies to support customers to, um, move towards healthy choices. But they hadn't, ALPA hadn't had just kind of gone along for the ride and they hadn't. They're retail experts and you know, they could really see big opportunities to influence a study design that would likely have big impacts, because at the end of the day, retailers know how to sell things. You know, nutritionists know what's healthy and have a little bit of ideas of what could work. But retailers know exactly how to sell things. Like that's what their job is. So ALPA approached the researchers, so it was led by Monash University and then there were other institutions that, um, were affiliates of it. So Menzies School of Health Research, um, Queensland University. Um, we approached. Approached Julie Brimblecombe and said, Hey, like, you know, we love working with you. We think we've got some really good ideas on how to, to really make a successful sugar reduction strategy because we can hear that, you know, sugar is a big concern for community leaders. So let's joint forces and create a study that we think is gonna be successful and you guys can evaluate it independently so that you know, whatever results we have, people can really believe that they're true cuz it's not us just doing it by ourselves. We don't have the retail expertise that they do. So, so that's how Healthy Stores 2020 was born. Um, so it is a sugar reduction strategy and it's focused on how we merchandise our products, our unhealthy foods and drinks, and our healthy foods and drinks. So it's, it's an eight-point strategy where that we are really restricting how we sell unhealthy foods. So they're still available, but the first thing is that we're not gonna promote them. So, you know, promotion is anything that's gonna drive someone to buy more of that product or buy that product. When they didn't think they were going to. So, you know, you see it all the time in, in major supermarkets, like buy one, get one free, or buy two for a discounted product. And it's so tempting because you're gonna get that saving and you're like, oh, I didn't really want it, but it's super cheap so I'm just gonna put it in my basket. So, so Healthy Store 2020 was, Stopping any of that from happening. So there was any promotions, which they were at the time, cuz we didn't have this strategy within our policy that they were removed during the study period. The other really big one was testing, whether removing unhealthy foods and drinks from high traffic areas would lead to people consuming less of those products. So, you know, a high traffic area is at the counter or behind the counter when you're walking into the store. The front ends of aisles. They're the places where. They're hotspot. There's a lot of people around these areas and if you put a product there, then it's in someone's, you know, eyesight and they're more likely to go, oh, actually I want that, or I need that, or I didn't need that, but it's so good and I'm so tempted to eat it. So in Healthy Stores 2020, we removed any. Unhealthy products. So not just sugary products, any unhealthy products from those high traffic areas [00:15:00] to see whether it's supported people to consume more sugar. And then the other really big strategy is part of Healthy Stores 2020 was targeting the four highest contributors to sugar in people's diets and reducing their shelf space so that you know, it's not in your face and you know you're not going to buy more of that product. So the four highest contributors to sugar in our customers diets from our store sales data. The first one which surprises everyone is table sugar. It is number one biggest seller of, uh, the biggest contributor to excessive sugar intake. And it's just not targeted by any health campaigns, and it really needs to be because it's, it's double the amount of soft drink, yet we all focus on soft drink and we're not having those real conversations around table sugar. So we reduce the shelf space of table sugar, the shelf space of sugar drinks, sweet biscuits and confectionary. So they're our four bigger sellers. And then for sugary drink, A big brave strategy as part of Healthy Stores 2020 was to remove the large volume soft drinks from the fridge, um, and put them available for customers. So there was still choice, but on the shelf at a warm temperature as opposed to being nice and cold, which I think for a lot of people who don't work in the remote space, they would go, well, when I walk into a supermarket, 1.25 are on the shelf anyway, that's where I buy them. But remote communities, they live in the fridge and they all, they have for a very, very long time and they're in the top 10 sellers of the store. And so when I say it's brave, it's because, you know, it is potentially something that might impact viability of the store. And so, you know, the boards that signed off on removing them from the fridge and putting 'em on the shelf really. Really thought about that impact it might have in terms of viability, but also customer acceptability cuz people might get really upset if they're so used to buying, you know, a 1.25-liter soft drink and can't get it cold anymore. They might get a bit upset. So we were a bit concerned that that might be something that would have to deal with as well. But our customers are really accepting of that. But unfortunately, we couldn't implement that big strategy in all of our stores in 50% of the stores that we operate in, there's competition and competition aren't doing the same thing, and they weren't a part of Healthy Stores 2020. And so if we are in a community where there's another store and we take 1.25's out of the fridge and they're such a big seller, then customers are just not gonna do their whole shop at the ALPA Store they're gonna walk next door and they're gonna get a cold 1.25 and it's not had any, you know, real improvement in terms of sugar reduction because they're just buying it from somewhere else, but it's gonna have a huge impact on the financial viability of that store. So, yeah, so they were, that's like a big broad what Healthy Stores 2020 was. And um, uh, we tested it in, so we recruited 20 stores. And we randomized. So it was a randomized control trial and it was in place for three months. So 10 stores received all those changes and the other 10 stores were business as usual. And then we got the data and, and presented the data back to all the store boards, um, that participated because what I haven't explained is the ALPA board made the decisions for the six ALPA owned community stores, but then we operate stores on behalf of other Aboriginal corporations. Oh. And they've got their own boards, and so they make the decisions for their stores. So they fall under the ALPA nutrition policy. They agree to fall under our policy, but then any changes we have to, once they've made the change from the ALPA board, then we have to go and present those changes to every other store board. In total, I have 14 store boards that I need to get across when we make one policy change. So that's why we don't do it so often because it's such a big process and it's a really important process to bring, you know, all of our boards. On that journey and to make those decisions that are right for their stores. So yeah, so we were presented back to all of those stores on the results of Healthy Stores 2020. And the big finding, our first one was whether or not it produced a statistically significant sugar reduction compared to the, um, control stores. And we did, um, manage to achieve. Statistical significance, um, which was a great result. So across the, um, the 10 stores, over 12 weeks, we reduced sugar by 1.8 tons, which it's, I think it's, it's an amazing result for such a short-term study across only 10 stores. And when we looked at what was happening in the control stores, the sugar was just increasing. So if we don't put these strategies in place, then we are just seeing sugar increase further and further. And so these strategies helps really help stem the flow. The second outcome that we were looking for was whether or not it impacted the financial viability of all the stores that we, yeah, and that was probably. To me one of the most exciting outcomes because [00:20:00] we found that we could achieve sugar reduction and it didn't negatively impact the stores that implemented those strategies. People just bought more of either healthy products or non-food products, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve. And so, and it gave our store boards that confidence to continue these strategies ongoing. Yeah. Um, which is just huge because I think before we implemented Healthy Stores 2020, People were, you know, hypothesizing about what's gonna happen and really thought the 1.25-liter relocation to the shelf was gonna impact store viability. And we can say, you can do this, you can do this, and it's not going to impact your sales. Yeah. People are going to move to a smaller volume and you know, we know how much soft drink is consumed across the world and in particularly in remote communities. And if you can get one person to move from a 1.25 soft drink, which has up to 33 spoons of sugar in it to a 600 ml is got 16 teaspoons in it. That's a huge win. Like obviously we'd want everyone to be drinking water, but like, you know, that's probably not the most realistic thing that we're gonna achieve right now, and I would love it to be that. But if we can move to, you know, half the amount of sugar. That's just huge. And so, yeah, to now be able to give that evidence to the world and to other remote retailers to say, Hey, you can do this, and it can have a huge sugar reduction and not impact your store is so good. And, you know, our board have been super proud of these results and I've, I've wanted to, you know, I, I talked to one of our board members, Djamalaka, and she's just amazing. She's a senior Aboriginal health, um, practitioner with Miwatji in health, and she's, I said, Djamalaka, you know, do you think everyone should be doing this? And she was like, well, no. I can't make that decision for everyone, but we can share this story and then they can decide whether it's right for their families, you know? And I was like, you, you're, you're far wiser than I am. Cause I think that everyone should be doing stuff like this. Um, but you know, it takes that time. People need to. Yeah, think about whether it's right for them. And it's a huge achievement and, and we're really proud of what Healthy Stores 2020 has shown. And, and we, we share those results really widely and encourage anyone who wants to learn more about it to get in touch with us or, you know, there is a website, Health Stores 2020 website, um, that has all of this information on there. So, um, but it was a huge, um, Like collaboration with Monash University and Menzies School of Health Research and all of our store teams and like the whole of ALPA was involved in it so it definitely wasn't just me at all. 

Sophie: No. But still, I think, yeah, it, I think it was exciting for, you know, nutritionist, and Dietitians everywhere to, to see that we, we can say you can implement strategies like this and, and you can maintain the viability of stores, because that usually is the biggest. And even, you know, we can kind of transfer that into like even school canteen environments. I know that like we've gotta test it and all that kind of stuff, but the thing we always come up against from my experience is, oh, this won't be viable. This is gonna cost too much. Um, no one's gonna accept this. And I guess my follow up question to that is did you have any consultation with, you know, community members within those communities about the acceptability of these, of that strategy and, and the changes that were being made? Or did you rely more on the board to kind of feed that information to you? 

Khia: That acceptability point is, was actually one of our outcomes and of the study. And like, you know, we could have put a study in place. Sorry, these strategies in place. Yeah. Improved sugar reduction or cheap sugar reduction and was financially viable. But what happens if customers weren't happy? It's just gonna undo. You are gonna have to put those things back in place. And so we relied on the boards to make the decision about whether they're also acceptable for their community or not, and then they'll put in place. And then we, um, had, uh, one of our research, um, officers call stores and get that information on how customers were receiving the strategy, we didn't wanna make a big deal about it. Like a lot of those strategies people did not even recognize had happened. Like, and I think, you know, you as a consumer who goes into supermarkets, you know, you are, you probably don't realize all the changes that happen every day. 

Sophie: Yeah, definitely.

Khia: And, and you don't recognize that all these things are really, really influencing your food choices. And so there were things that we just knew we didn't need to get approvals from the customer level and potentially, By getting those approvals, we would stop it and we wouldn't be able to test whether or not it worked. Um, so I guess the big strategy that we were concerned about, whether it was. [00:25:00] Acceptable was 1.25 relocation. Um, and we, it just went so smoothly. Like there, it was something that we were concerned of. Store manager safety and store team member safety, but everyone just got it. They know that sugar is a problem.

Sophie: Yeah.

And that we need to put things in place. And I was out there setting up these, these strategies in the stores and, you know, there was one store that I was in where I had a grandma come up to me and just say, thank you for doing this, because I try really hard to have these conversations with my grandkids and I can't get them to make the change, but you guys are helping us do this. And then there was another instance where, um, it wasn't actually a community member that was upset about not getting her 1.25 soft drink cold. It was like a non-indigenous stakeholder in the community and. Um, one of the senior, um, store team members, Yolngu store team members in this community. She was just like, no, this is not okay. Like, you can't have this opinion because we've made this decision like to do this because it's impacting the health of our people. So she got on the loud speaker in Yolngu just talking about the importance of this study and why we're testing it. And then she sat down next to the 1.25 litre soft drinks for the rest of the day to tell people why we are doing this. And that just squashed any kind of, um, you know, people being angry and it was just amazing. So yeah, everyone was very, um, surprised that every or our customers were accepting of the strategy. Yeah, we can't underestimate how consumers across Australia are wanting these changes. We're never asked whether we wanted it there in the first place. You know, we ne we're never asked. We want a whole aisle of confectionary when I walk into a major supermarket chain. No, I don't want confectionary at the counter, but I'm never asked that.

Exactly. Yeah, that is such an important point. Like it's, I guess this, um, like Healthy Stores 2020 and any other type of initiative that, um, you know, changes that store environment to be healthier is really just combating, um, or balancing, you know, the insidious nature of, um, unhealthy food marketing that we've just been exposed to our entire lives, but have never really questioned it because it's, it's what we perceive as normal.

Khia: Totally. It's so interesting because, you know, we will share our policies. Um, every time we have a new store manager start, they spend 20, they spend two hours with the nutrition team to, um, on their second day of joining ALPA to hear about what we are doing. And it's so interesting cuz some people will say, oh, don't you feel like you are manipulating people? And it's like, well no. Cause I'm like, well, oh yes. But like that manipulation's been happening. Ever since retail became a thing, and everyone gets manipulated at every single store that they walk into, whether or not it's a grocery store or you know, a clothing store, but it's about, you know, looking at it in a different way, in a positive way. You know that you can, you can influence people towards healthy foods by the way that you sell your product. 

Sophie: Definitely. And like you, you know, you mentioned at the start, you're still providing people the choice to purchase those foods. You're just, you know, reducing the shelf space of them or, you know, moving them from a cold to a non-cold environment or removing them from those high traffic areas. And I think, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously supportive of it, but I can see, you know, it isn't, it isn't completely removing choice. Um, 

Khia: yeah.

Sophie: But it's, it's kind of balancing what has existed for a long time. 

Khia: Yeah, 

Sophie: and I think back to your point on community acceptance, I think it really highlights the, the importance and, and just what, like such a good job that ALPA has done. And even just because of the structure of the organization, of having some kind of community consultation from the very start, um, and people making decisions who know, who know their communities and, and are embedded and you know, are making those really informed choices.

Khia: Yeah. 

Sophie: And, and being involved. 

Khia: Yeah. I mean this, we would not have been successful at all if that's not how it went, if we didn't have that leadership from the boards themselves. And so like, if you're just fighting a losing battle, if you are trying to do it yourself down the bottom and get a whole organization to change you, it really needs to be something that people understand and, and then, you know, consider everything, all the impacts for that business and then make the decision it is so more, it's so much more successful than just trying to do it yourself. 

Sophie: Definitely. And did you wanna give some insight into, you know, what else you do as part of your role? Um, at ALPA?

Khia: We are so fortunate to, to have conversations with food manufacturers and I think that's something that, you know, if one of the benefits of this job is that you have [00:30:00] to have those conversations and you know, you don't feel guilted by having those conversations. Cause it's a question that I asked someone, you know, quite high up in advocacy, like, should nutritionists be having conversations with food, retail or big food? And I remember I was shocked by her response cuz she's like, well no, that's a real conflict. It's like, well if we're only talking to ourselves and not talking to food industry, then how are we gonna expect them to make changes that are gonna support population health? Like we need to be bringing food industry on the journey with us. And so I'm so lucky that I get that opportunity to, you know, to explain to brand reps why we need food more affordable in remote communities because it's so expensive in the bush to operate and we do not have the same buying power as the supermarkets do, and, and our customers, you know, are some of the most disadvantaged people in the world. So, you know, big food should be supporting us with cheaper prices, not just continuing to hand those cheaper prices down to, um, major supermarkets. 

Sophie: Yeah, definitely.

Khia: Um, you know, I can, we can tell them we need reformulation, like, you know, we can still have unhealthy products on the shelf, but if you just reduce your sugar by five, 10, 15%, that's gonna have such a big impact of, like across Australia. Food industry has so much power and I think, you know, we work every day. We have meetings you know, every week with, um, food re like, you know, manufacturers and wholesalers on, on what we need to support our policy and, and then hope that they take that on to then think about how they do the business for the rest of Australia. Um, so that's a really big part of our job. Um, but I guess one project that we've been working on for a while, I think it's like our most exciting project, um, is we've been working with Emma McMahon um, who just amazing at analysing food sales data and within building reports in internal reports so that I can track well, so our team and our business and can track how our strategies are going and how, how customer purchase behaviours are changing. So then that can influence policy development. So we now have like a whole sugar database, um, built into our reporting system and I can track community by community, like store by store, any single product that has any amount of sugar, how that's selling and how it's contributing to sugar intake. And then identify policy opportunities for boards to consider and I just never had that oversight before. Like with Healthy Stores 2020, we put these things in place. I can see like quantity, sales data, like I can see how many, um, kilos of one kilo table sugar are selling. But I couldn't see, like, you know, if you're selling a soft drink and it's got, I don't know, 33 spoons of sugar in it. I couldn't actually see how the sugar sales are going. It's, it was honestly like a blindfold was lifted. Like I can, I can see now. Like, I could see what our policies were doing before, but really get into the nitty gritty of the data. And data is just incredible and it allows you to do some amazing things and to, you know, to give that information to the decision makers to make, make decisions for their community. So, you know, just before jumping onto chatting with you, I was putting a presentation together for a board to consider, um, some new strategies that they could put in place for their community around, um, soft drink consumption, and I can show them what their biggest seller is and how, you know, how much sugar overall from all of the sources of sugar in that store they're selling in comparison to what WHO recommend. And that's just incredible to be able to share that story with people. Help inform what they do. So that to me is our number one biggest project. Um, 

Sophie: that is awesome. You're obviously focusing on sugar, and I understand, you know, why and, and also that there's been, um, it sounds like a community kind of call for that, but have you considered like other nutrients when you're looking at, you know, some of the strategies that you've done or, um, even like looking at the data. You know, things like saturated fat or sodium, or even like looking at it from like a positive lens of, you know, fruit and vegetable intake or, um, other kind of nutrients. 

Khia: Yeah, so at ALPA we've got, we've got four KPIs around nutrition that we feed back to our board every quarter and they hold us accountable to that, which is amazing. So the first one is fruit and veg consumption and, and that, A part of the project with Emma from Menzies was building better, um, fruit and veg tracking. Reports as well because you know, we want to understand not just total tonnage, like we don't wanna just know how many kilos we're selling. We wanna know how many kilos in relation to, [00:35:00] you know, how many people are in the community. And we're never gonna know how many people are are in the community Exactly. But we've been able to build away where we know or we can, we can see where people are putting more fruit veg in their basket or whether. You know, there's more people in community, so I don't wanna just see kilos go up cuz I don't know whether or not it’s because, you know, there might have been a funeral in town that's brought a lot of people into, into community and so I'm celebrating that we're selling more kilos. But actually it's just that there's more people there just eating less fruit and veg. I wanna know that there's more fruit and veg going into their basket. And we've got a KPI now that tracks that. Um, and that is our, our first KPI that we report back to the board. Um, and then number two is total sugar. Um, we were never able to report that back. Um, and then number three is how we track our takeaway sales, our healthy takeaway sales, because in pretty much all the stores that we operate, we also operate the takeaway. And, um, you know, it's not a huge portion of total food sales. It's about 10% of all food comes from the takeaway. 

Sophie: Okay

Khia: um, but it's still significant. Some people rely a hundred percent of their diet. And so it's important that they have healthy options available. And so we've got strong KPIs around the healthy takeaway sales that we sell. Um, and, and then we've got a KPI around tobacco, um, sales as well. Um, but in terms of other nutrients, we, we put so much work into building this database to track sugar and we, and we had to purchase that data as well. And so, yeah. Um, and we have to maintain that database. So when new products come on, we have to add that. Yeah. I can't, like at the moment we, we haven't purchased data on saturated fat and we haven't purchased data on salt. Um, but we have, our store nutrition policy is 44 pages. Right? Like it's, there's a lot of policies there, so we've. We've got minimum stocking requirements on, you know, every food group of like the range that should be there. And we, we've got those strong policies in place around removing unhealthy foods and drinks from high traffic areas and not having, having them on promotion. So we are targeting salt, we're still targeting salt, we're still targeting saturated fat. In every other policy that we are doing is just that. We don't have that ability at the moment to track. I would say that if, if we did and we had the money to be able to build them, that they'd probably be tracking in the same way as as sugar, because our policies are in place and we've got the team to help put it in place.

Sophie: Yeah. And with the fruit and veg, like you've got a KPI for that. I just wanted to ask you, do you have any strategies with, um, increasing fruit and veg consumption that, you know, have worked more so, or, or even at like a, a higher level of what you're doing in that? 

Khia: Yeah, we've, we've put a lot in place, um, around fruit and veg. And for me, the, the first thing is we've gotta get, we've gotta get quality, right? And we work with our supplier and we've got really supportive suppliers. So Simon George and Sons, our fruit and veg supplier for all of our stores. And, and they know. The challenges of maintaining good quality in remote stores, like we've got stores where the stock has to be on the barge for seven days, so you know, you've gotta buy produce that's gonna last seven days on the barge and then seven days in the store. Because our stores only get, like, most of them only get one delivery a week. So, so first is about getting the quality right and, and making sure that our store teams report back any quality issues to maintain that. Um, and so, I mean, that's not an easy strategy for public health nutritionists to implement or have those discussions. Um, but you know, you can start those discussions with the store managers to, you know, if you're seeing really poor quality stuff. It might not be that store manager's fault or that store team's fault. It might be that they just don't have, you know, a supplier who's really working and understanding their business. And I mean, that's a harder thing to. To have a conversation about, to say maybe you should change suppliers when you don't really know who's in the market. But you know, store managers are so busy operating a whole store that they might not be, you know, thinking that they could do something different.

Sophie: Yeah, definitely. And understand that context by sounds of it, not just coming in with, you know, laying blame on people and 

Khia: Yeah, so important, like that's what we tried, like we invite the nutritionist who, where we overlap, so we've got nutritionists from other health services that. Working communities that our stores are in. And so we always invite them to, um, come into ALPA and we give them an induction on remote stores. And that's a really big thing, just understanding how hard it is to do business in the bush. And, and so when you walk into a store, don't get upset or if, if something isn't there first. Think about what might have happened for that product to not be there like it might have been that the barge was delayed. You know, just before I joined, you know, I could hear all these [00:40:00] challenges about barges before I left. So it's a huge challenge to get stock there. The truck might have broken down, you know, the. The fridge that holds the fruit and veg might have broken down. And so the quality, you know, it's all just died because you've gotta maintain them at a, at a good temperature. And so there's so many challenges to, to get fruit and veg on the shelf. And so when you walk into a store in a remote community and see good quality, you know, a good variety. It’s the biggest win ever and should be celebrated. And I don't think that remote nutritionists do that enough. They look in and they see the problems of a store and they don't celebrate the wins and, you know, say good job to the store team because it's so hard. So quality, getting the quality right first is a, is a really big one that ALPA worked on. And then really supporting our stores. Like we've, with the work that we've been doing with Emma, like we're starting to do monthly fruit and veg reports to really show. Every store, how they're tracking and what their ordering opportunities are because we, you know, can track if something's sold out before the next delivery. And then, you know, have those conversations about increasing your orders. So, you know, we, we say if you. If you are running out, increase your orders is by 20%. Like our stores aren't gonna get in trouble for riding off room veg like they might with something else. So that's something that sometimes people get a bit scared of is, is fruit and veg write-offs. So supporting ordering is a really big thing, but we are blessed in that we have that oversight. Like a nutritionist.

Sophie: Yeah. 

Khia: Doesn't really get that opportunity to see that information. And then another big thing that we've been working on with fruit and veggies, just getting the infrastructure right to sell the product. So it's really, you know, having. Really nice fridges that run at a good temperature and having, you know, and having fixtures that hold fruit and veg to make it present really nicely, like everyone eats with their eyes. So you are, you know, walking into a store and it just doesn't look nice. You're gonna buy less. And I think that's what the major supermarkets do so well is they greet you with fruit and veg and it looks amazing. And It gets people to buy stock. And that's, you know, that's why we always learn from what they're doing in that regard, not in what they're doing with all the sugar products and all the unhealthy products. Yeah. Um, and steal their ideas. So nutritionist, you know, you gotta get out to supermarkets. I am such a, like, I just, I spend so much time in supermarkets and see what they're doing and what we could do from them and yeah, it's, it's a good learning ground.. 

Sophie: Definitely and learning, you know, learning also from those unhealthy foods, but like going, okay, why are these selling so well and what are they doing to market them? And then even transferring that into, you know, the healthy foods that we wanna sell as well. And, you know, remote stores. Definitely get a lot of media attention when it comes to the price of food, particularly healthy or fresh food, like fruit and veg, milk and um, meat products as well. And there's also been a lot of media recently around inflation and the cost of food going up. And I just wanted to ask, how have you kind of worked within that space and how has ALPA been dealing with that? Balancing, again, like the nutrition of food, but also the price and the viability of stores. 

Khia: Yeah, affordability. Improving the affordability of healthy Options has been our first objective of the ALPA Nutrition strategy since the 1980. So it's something that our board and, you know, their retail leadership team have been acutely aware that food is more expensive in the bush and, and we've got the lowest incomes. And so we've gotta do something about that. So we talk price every day and, um, and we have lower markups on all of our healthy products, um, to, to support people towards those. Um, ALPA we subsidized the freight on fresh and frozen tined, fruit and veg, and we have since the 1980s. Wow. Then in the early two thousands we paid for the freight for dairy products, and then last year in, we expanded the freight subsidy to include, um, all meat products, fresh and frozen, um, as a way of trying to support the consumer with, with cheaper prices. Um, so that way that that freight subsidy works, is it part of our benevolent program where it's the surpluses that are generated from that store that are then, you know, taken to reduce the price of those healthy products. And so it's not a government funded thing. And this is something that a lot of people, you know, there's myths about government freight subsidies in the bush. Like, and I've had to dispel them with family members where they're like, you know, remote stores, they get this subsidy on freight from the government and then they up their prices and I'm like, well, no, they don't. There's no such thing. And it's just insane to me that we're in [00:45:00] 2022 and there's still no freight subsidy for the remote stores in in Australia to get produce out there like you know, this week we've got stores that are cut off in for the wet season for up to six months. For six months. They have to pay for a plane to fly stock fruit and veg in. So, you know, I think anyone who's been out to the bush, if you've ever got a quote for a charter plane, They're so expensive and this is something that stores have to pay for and if they can't afford that, then they go, oh, we can't afford it. We're gonna have to do fortnightly. We know that it's not gonna, yeah, you know, maintain the quality over a fortnight, but that's all we can do because the government isn't helping to reduce the freight costs. And it's just, just crazy to me that we're happy to, you know, sub pay for medication for people. Yet we are not going to reduce the cost of healthy foods and support prevention as opposed to treatment. Like it's just crazy. So, yeah. Um, so we are doing as much as we can on our end to Yeah. Reduce the markups. Um, to work at looking at cheapest freight options to work with our suppliers on cheaper products that we can sub in, like, um, like home branded products as opposed to branded products. Um, and we have our freight subsidies that are all funded by the stores, not by government. But there's still a price gap. There's still a price gap because we still don't have that buying power that the big supermarkets have. And you know, it costs a lot to get freight out there. And then it costs a lot to, to operate a store in a remote community. Like if, if we are making big bucks, You would have the major supermarkets out in remote communities, they're not there for a reason because you don't make the bucks like, and at the end of the day, the profits go back into the store, into the community. So like, yeah. 

Sophie: Yeah. And keeping that, you know, economy within that community, you're having to pay Like that money gets moved out of the community and Yeah. Yeah. I can see so many issues with that. And I guess on that note, You've been working in this space for quite a while now, Khia and, and like you say, you're learning new things every day, but is there anything else like you think, you know, you'd like to advocate for, you'd like to see more in this space?

Khia: Mm-hmm. I mean, I think the government really need to stop focusing on acute care management and start really looking at prevention and when it comes to improving nutrition, you have to start at the food environment. And I don't think that government really truly understands the influence that the stores have on people's health and they don't support it. And I, I encourage any politician to come with me out to a store where there's another competition store as well, and I can show you what our policies do and how they support people, and then what other stores are doing. And then maybe they'll see that we should increase funding to have nutrition specific. Um, positions that are focused on stores, not focused on sitting in a clinic, educating people and making it a person's problem. It's not a person's problem, it's the environment that's not supporting people to make change. And so we need more capacity within the remote food environment, nutrition capacity to support people to make a difference. And we truly need the government to do something about this price difference that exists and, and just don't call for another pricing inquiry. We've done that. It hasn't done anything. You've found that it's, the prices are high for a reason. Do something about it and don't just put it on the shoulders of stores, community owned stores. Do something about it. Be real at doing something about it.

Sophie: Definitely. And don't just do an inquiry and then sit on it for another 10 years and call for another one without making any changes.

Khia: Totally.

Sophie: you know, you've covered so much ground, Khia but I wanted to ask, you know, have there been any best moments from working in this space and working with ALPA um, over the four years you've been there?

Khia: I mean, I think the best moments are being able to present back to our boards and, and work with our board members to come up with new solutions to, you know, improve food, the food system, and then get them implemented into stores. Like that is so cool to be able to be part of that whole journey. But like, you know, Been to places where with our board members, where they've talked about, you know, what we're achieving in, in remote food security and, and remote source nutrition. And they're so proud of the decisions that they've made and how that's impacted people's health. And so I think, yeah, my proudest, my proudest moment is seeing other people being proud about the decisions they've made. 

Sophie: Yeah. Any major learnings that you've kind of gained over the years? 

Khia: I, I mean, Can't believe that I'm in a retail organization and I'm more supported to do stuff around health and nutrition than I have ever been in a [00:50:00] health uh, organization. So I don't, my challenges are definitely not internally with ALPA, where I feel so supported by all of the store boards and by the ALPA leadership team and by my whole retail team to make a difference. So that's definitely not my challenge. The challenge is getting, Government to really recognize the need to do more to support all remote stores and actually every store in the country to put really strong policies in place to support people towards a healthy choice and to reduce prices from remote communities. My biggest challenge is not feeling like ever remote stores are ever listened to. Um, when it comes to those challenges and just, I can't even imagine being someone living remote dealing with those challenges. Like, it's just so tough and, and to not feel supported by our government to remove those barriers would be so frustrating.

Sophie: Yeah, definitely. Um, but I just wanted to ask like, You know, you're, you're in the remote setting but you're in that retail space and within Australia, like we've got Woolworths and Coles and it's a bit of a duopoly. And do you have any commentary on like what their responsibility is when it comes to impacting the remote store space or even like the food environment generally within Australia?

Khia: Uh, it's interesting cuz you can read their responses to the remote pricing inquiry and they'll say that they're not responsible at all. But you know, they do have heaps of power and they've got. Obviously powerful relationships with food manufacturers. And so, and you know, there have been instances where they've, you know, supported remote stores, but I think that there's more that could be done from a supermarket level to understand their big price wars. What, what impact that having on any other retailer in Australia, um, and particularly retailers in the bush. And then thinking about, you know, being a bit more responsible so people in the bush aren't paying at the high prices because people in cities are paying the lowest prices. It's just crazy. So I, yeah, I think that they could, they could be more done from a, um, supermarket perspective. 

Sophie: Yeah. Interesting. And then my final question to you, Khia, is what has been your favourite food experience? 

Khia: My favorited food experience? Well, I, my, my dad's Indian and I come from a, um, yeah, really big family. And my grandma, like any Indian grandmother, loves to feed us. Like as soon as you walk into her house, you can smell Curry's cooking and your clothes, your clothes stink of curry when you walk out. Um, and she, yeah, makes beautiful food. So my favourite food experience is just being able to go. Go and visit my grandma and, and eat one of her foods, like one of her dishes with all of my cousins. That's my favorited time. 

Sophie: Yeah. Yeah. That sounds beautiful and I'm actually quite jealous but thank you so much for coming on the show. 

Khia: No, I think it's like, thank you for that opportunity to tell some of our story. Um, yeah, I think that's probably the, the one thing that I would love people to walk away from is knowing that remote stores, not just ALPA there's a lot of other remote stores in Northern Territory and you know, that's where we, I operate and then in Queensland, so I know what's happening in those spaces, but they're doing so much to influence people's purchasing behaviours and you know, I think a lot of people think, oh, that's just a remote space. Well, no it's not. You could, everyone in Australia and around the world, Look at what's being done in remote communities and celebrate it and go, Hey, this is something that should be happening elsewhere. Like, there's a real strength there. And I think that, um, you know, we, we've had trailblazers in remote or in healthy retailing for a long time and Yeah. And they need to be celebrated and acknowledged and, and we welcome anyone to, to hear what we do. Ask us questions and, um, happy to help you on your healthy retailing journey.

Sophie: Yeah, definitely. And I think, like you say, I, I totally agree. I think the remote space is definitely leading the, the way in, you know, in this healthy food environment Yeah. Space and, and, and showing that it is, it is a viable alternative to what we currently are exposed to and. Not just in other remote spaces around the country or around the world, but even in urban spaces, it would be fantastic to see just little things like you say, like taking certain drinks outta the fridge or, or in those high traffic areas having, you know, healthy foods position there instead of chocolate bars and lollies and all those types of things. Like your organization is definitely leading the way. So many, so many organizations and individuals can definitely learn from everything that, that you guys are doing and that you've, you've proven. And yeah, I mean I look forward to seeing where ALPA continues to progress into the future. Um, there's a long history there and I'm sure there'll be so much more to come as well.

Khia: Thanks, Sophie. 

Sophie: As a bit of an add on, Khia gave me a bit of an update on the Healthy Stores 2020. [00:55:00] Since the study has concluded, it's now been embedded into their daily practice at ALPA. Khia um, told me that Healthy Stores 2020 has push boards to be more bolder. And I've also signed off on an additional 22 sugar reduction strategies within, um, their stores. And this is now the head to 131 tons less sugar going into communities since the initial. Implementation of Healthy Stores 2020, which is a massive, um, outcome, uh, for any space, but, um, particularly within this space. So we'll put some links to ALPA's website and socials as well as the Healthy Stores 2020, uh, website and the show notes if you're interested in anything that was talked about on the show. So thanks for listening. And remember, we're on Instagram or Twitter if you'd like to get in touch or even ask us any questions. And I've also included the foodies email in the show notes if you'd prefer to connect with us that way, and if you do get the chance, please leave us a review to help us spread the word all about public health nutrition.