Holland & Barrett has unveiled a major new health commitment and campaign, aimed at encouraging Brits to take a more proactive approach to their health and wellness.
Under the ‘Back Your Body’ commitment, Holland & Barrett aims to expand access to “wellness advice, education and support” to at least 10 million people a year by 2030. It will include new community programmes and charity partnerships, as well as through its own in-store and digital channels.
The launch of the commitment will be backed by a full advertising campaign across the UK and Ireland, across TV, out of home, social media and in stores. The “call to action” will encourage people to better understand their bodies, so they can ask for more effective wellness products.
It marks the next stage of Holland & Barrett’s long-term growth strategy, having invested heavily in renovating its stores and supply chain, as well as into its digital, food and product offer over the past three years.
With more than 800 stores, as well as a growing network of concessions within the likes of Co-op, Tesco and Morrisons, the initiative seeks to position Holland & Barrett as “a ready-built national prevention partner” to support Labour’s 10-year health plan, which has put a greater emphasis on preventative health as a way of reducing pressure on the NHS.
To kick off the campaign H&B is offering customers 20% off in store until 12 April. It will introduce 15-minute in-store ‘Wellness Check-ins’ specifically tailored to shoppers under 40, and therefore not eligible for the NHS’s 40+ Health Check. The retailer will also continue to expand the number of in-store diagnostic clinics with Randox Health.
The retailer said it invested £1.5m annually into training its 4,000-plus store staff as wellness advisors. So far employees had gone through 500,000 hours of UK-accredited training in how to deliver proactive and personalised health advice.
Read more: Anthony Houghton on Holland & Barrett’s epic turnaround
“As the UK’s leading health and wellness retailer, accessible on almost every high street and online, we are ideally placed to help back the nation’s bodies,” said Holland & Barrett CEO Anthony Houghton.
“We are continuing to invest in our stores across the UK and Ireland, enhancing our destinations for accessible wellness solutions and proactive, personalised health advice that work – from products that are rooted in science alongside 150 years of trusted expert advice, helping make health and wellness accessible for everyone.”
The launch coincides with the publication of Holland & Barrett’s 2026 State of the Nation’s Health report. In partnership with Ipsos, the retailer polled 5,000 UK adults aged 16 to 75 on their views about seeking support for their health and wellbeing.
Health services increasingly difficult to access in the UK
It revealed that despite the majority of adults (74%) believing that establishing good health and wellness routines is key to preventing future illness, more than a third (37%) said they found it difficult to know what advice to seek. Some 78% of the public only go to the doctors when “absolutely necessary”.
Difficulty accessing health services is a major cause of the disconnect, Holland & Barrett said. Only 45% of those polled said they believed access to health and wellness advice was “easy”. This declined in some specific regions, with just 34% of adults in Northern Ireland saying they could easily access health services.
“This latest report reveals a stark reality,” Houghton said. “Whilst the nation has an ambition to live healthier lives, they are being held back by the barriers keeping them from turning this into reality, creating a significant ‘wellness gap’ with an urgent need for health and wellness to be made more accessible and addressing the lack of clear, actionable and personalised advice.”
Houghton continued: “The high street has a vital role to play in narrowing the gap and making health and wellness accessible for everyone. At Holland & Barrett, we’re evolving into a destination for preventative health and everyday health and wellness support.
”By acting as a trusted, non-clinical partner, we can provide the science-led, personalised support needed to turn complicated health data into simple, everyday actions – relieving pressure on our NHS and wider health systems and making preventative health a reality for everyone, regardless of their postcode.”
No comments yet