CHICAGO – Food retailers are turning to nutritional labels in an effort to inspire loyalty and increase sales, the Chicago Tribune reports. Hy-Vee grocery stores joins Hannaford supermarkets in offering shoppers nutritional information on food items via a rating system.

Hy-Vee’s system involves rating nearly every item on a scale of one to 100 for nutritional value, with the higher the score, the healthier the food. The rating system, called the Overall Nutritional Quality Index, or ONQI, was developed by a Yale University doctor who partnered with Topco Associations, a grocery cooperative owned by approximately 60 supermarket chains. ONQI looks at the concentration of a given nutrient in any food.

With more manufacturers marketing the healthfulness of their foods, there’s a growing importance to alerting consumers as to the nutritional content of the food they buy. “We know that close to 60 percent of shoppers are actively incorporating health and wellness into their food-purchasing decisions,” said Jim Hertel of Willard Bishop. “This is a fairly significant number of shoppers. It’s not just the Birkenstock crowd.”

The rating systems are designed to assist shoppers in cutting through the clutter of competing health claims. The advantage of the supermarket rating the food is that the same criteria is used on every product.

By September, ONQI plans to have rated 40,000 products, with Hy-Vee rolling out the system by product line starting with breakfast cereal. Eventually, Hy-Vee will rate “virtually every packaged product in the store,” said Ric Jurgens, Hy-Vee’s chief executive and Topco’s chairman.