PSV and Supermarket Jumbo innovate with Jumbo Food Coach
A few years ago, Dutch Supermarket Chain Jumbo and EFDN member PSV Eindhoven asked each other how they could instill a healthy, nutritious and easy-to-follow diet in their athletes. A pattern that would stimulate the performance curve, but ultimately could also be used to help the consumer. The result; the Jumbo Foodcoach. Since the start of the 2017-2018 football season, the programme has been extensively tested and further developed at PSV and others. The figures show its success. Where in the first season the players ordered around 700 meals via the app, in recent seasons this number has been well over 7000.
Tailor-made nutritional advice
A healthy and balanced diet is crucial for the performance of top athletes. That was the reason for PSV to join forces with Jumbo, says Wart van Zoest, PSV club doctor and involved in the project since the start of Jumbo Foodcoach. ‘A top sports diet requires a tailor-made, individual approach. A football player who has played a match, needs to eat something different the next day than a player who did not play. Also after a power training session it is important to pay attention to what you eat,’ he explains. ‘For breakfast and lunch, which are both provided at the club, we have been able to control that for a while. The question was: how do you do that when the players leave the club?’
Jumbo Foodcoach – an integral part of PSV’s medical programme – is a perfect tool for this. Van Zoest: ‘At the ‘back end’ the coaching team enters what work has been done. When opening the app, players can indicate specific preferences and ingredients for matching recipes. These are converted into a shopping list. The process is fully digitised and the groceries are then delivered to the club or collected from a Jumbo shop nearby.’
Almost the entire squad used the latest version of Jumbo Foodcoach last season. ’50 to 60 percent of our players group, use the app structurally,’ says Van Zoest. ‘Another 20 to 30 per cent do so on a regular basis. Via Jumbo Foodcoach a player can plan ten to twelve eating moments per week. He can then choose from hundreds of top sports meals and healthy snacks, with ingredients that are exactly tailored to match or training schedule. With this, we think we can give players an advantage. It has been proven that a balanced diet promotes recovery and strengthens the muscles’, says Van Zoest.
Vitality and innovation
During the weekly contact that Jumbo and PSV had in recent years, Jumbo gained a lot of knowledge about translating personal preferences into conscious and responsible food choices. This knowledge has been made available to fanatical cyclists since the summer of 2020 via the beta version of the Jumbo Foodcoach app. ‘Jumbo Foodcoach enables everyone not only to make the right choices in terms of nutrition, but also to eat what he or she needs tasty and easily at home,’ says Robert-Jan Koens manager Jumbo Foodcoach. ‘Vitality and innovation are themes that bind PSV and Jumbo,’ he continues, referring to two pillars of the Brainport partnership in which Jumbo is one of the six premium partners. ‘Improving top sport performances was one of the reasons for Jumbo to embrace this project.’
Together, Jumbo and PSV also continue to innovate. Since the summer of 2021 the project has been deepened. On PSV Campus De Herdgang special fridges are positioned that, by means of a colour, advise players which foodstuffs they can take the best in order to perform optimally in training, a match or during recovery. In each fridge there are different products, matching the schedule they follow. ‘Ultimately, we also want to help our customers, many of whom are from the Brainport region (the area called around Eindhoven), to make a tasty and responsible choice, where healthy food does not have to come at the expense of taste, experience and price. Everything we do, we do in service of the customer,’ says Koens.
Customer-focused
Whether it is about feeling better about yourself, losing some kilos or performing better in sports, Jumbo research shows that customers are looking for a way to improve their eating routines. Koens: ‘A growing number of customers want to follow a responsible eating pattern, but the problem is that they often do not know how to do this. The idea is: healthy is a fuss. Moreover, adjusting your eating routine is not easy. Jumbo helps to make this simple and fun. With our top sports chefs we develop recipes that top athletes like to eat. Through the Jumbo Foodcoach app, we unlock the nutritional knowledge that top sports teams like PSV have, by offering these recipes tailored to their needs. This way everyone who runs, does fitness and of course practise team sports can also make intensive use of Jumbo Foodcoach. This year the app has to help all our customers.’
