Holland & Barrett has unveiled a digital wellness app, as it steps up its “experience-led” digital and store transformation.
The new “personalised wellness platform” – which is called H&B&Me – enables users to track their biological age, creates tailored “science-backed 21-day” health plans and gives daily recommendations from an in-house digital coach in how to improve their lifestyle.
The retailer claims the launch is a “significant” milestone in its strategy to transform its offer to make its stores and brand a “destination” for health and wellness. Over the past year, owner LetterOne has invested £96.3m into upgrading H&B’s digital systems, stores and fulfilment processes.
Now, the digital app will “transform” H&B’s customer experience, while at the same time allowing the retailer to recommend its products and services to users.
“We’re living through a societal shift towards prevention, testing and self-care, combined with insufficient public healthcare provision due to constraints on national health systems, yet with unprecedented interest from consumers in their own wellness,” said Tamara Rajah, CEO of wellness solutions and chief transformation officer at Holland & Barrett.
“This highlighted an unmet need for an accessible, affordable, engaging preventative wellness solution, which not only tracks wellness, but crucially empowers people to move beyond quick fixes and build healthy habits that lead to lasting improvements in overall wellbeing.
“This is what we’ve created with H&B&Me, and it sits right at the heart of H&B’s purpose to make health and wellness a way of life for everyone and add quality years to life.”
Rajah was appointed to lead the development and rollout of H&B&Me in 2024, following a restructure of H&B’s executive team. The app is run by a small internal team, in partnership with scientists from the University of London.
It has been rolled out following an initial nine-week trial earlier this year, in which 87% of participants reported “significant improvements” in their energy, mood and health, H&B claimed.
“These findings demonstrate the real-world value of H&B&Me in improving key aspects of daily health,” said Dr John Deanfield, professor of cardiology at UCL and director of the National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research.
“By focusing on biological age, H&B&Me is providing individuals with a more meaningful measure of their wellbeing – and a practical, science-based way to enhance it. This app has the potential to transform preventative health by making it more personal, measurable and achievable for everyone.”
H&B joins a growing number of companies offering what it calls preventative digital health solutions, including most notably Tim Spector’s Zoe.
The retailer has been investing heavily into “experience” and physical wellness solutions at its stores as part of its three-year transformation plan, which launched in 2023 following LetterOne’s £700m debt buyout deal. In March, it opened its first ever experience-led future store in Cardiff.
It’s also been investing into training its store staff to offer better health advice to shoppers at its in-store clinics, and has been trialling in-store DNA testing at some of its stores.
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