Holland & Barrett becomes founding partner of GenM to raise menopause symptom awareness

07 Oct 2021 --- Holland & Barrett has become a founding partner of GenM, an organization which encourages brands to recognize and respond to the needs of menopausal women.

“We are pushing to normalize the conversation and for the menopausal market to be taken seriously by brands, enabling women and those who experience menopause to have enough knowledge to make informed choices on how best to deal with their symptoms,” Heather Jackson, co-founder of GenM, tells PersonalCareInsights.

The move will allow more insight to be given to brands and consumers about the menopause journey, from the symptoms women experience to the natural remedies that can alleviate these symptoms. It also aims to break the stigma surrounding menopause.

“Our goal is to ensure women who experience menopause can go into it pre-equipped with knowledge on what to expect, clear signposting from brands on which products can help with symptoms, and a support system of friends, colleagues and family who are aware of how it will affect them.”

Raising awareness
Despite 15.5 million menopausal and perimenopausal women in the UK and around 1 billion worldwide, conversations around menopause are still lacking, details Jackson.

“Having this conversation on menopause in the mainstream goes a long way in breaking the stigma surrounding the topic of menopause,” adds Sam Simister, co-founder of GenM.

“Holland & Barrett aims to raise awareness of the effect of menopause on everyday quality of life and give women the confidence to talk openly about its impact on their lives,” Tamara Rajah, chief business and science officer at Holland & Barrett.GenM and Holland & Barret aim to normalize the conversation surrounding menopause.

“Additionally, Holland & Barrett gives support and wellness solutions that can help bring relief from all menopause symptoms – from hot flushes to vaginal dryness to mood changes,” continues Rajah.

Normalizing conversations
GenM exists to help brands and organizations understand the needs of menopause, use their platforms to normalize the conversation around the topic, and better represent menopause in future products, services, signposting, campaigns and workplace policies, explains Simister.

“We are pleased to have organizations like Holland & Barrett join us early on as founding partners and use their voice to amplify our cause,” she adds. “Organizations need to realize that normalizing the menopause conversation is essential not just for consumers but also for colleagues in the workplace.”

Menopause is something that all women and some trans and nonbinary people will experience, so there is a huge purposeful opportunity to be had in serving this market, stresses Jackson.

“There is also a huge personnel drain in the workplace due to insufficient understanding of menopause,” she continues. “Women of menopause age are the fastest-growing demographic in the workforce, and research that we carried out found that 88% of women want more support from their employers during menopause.”

Honing in on natural remedies
There are some proven, natural ways to help with menopausal symptoms. Holland & Barrett has a range of herbal medicines to help ease symptoms and nutritional supplements to support menopause.

“Aside from factoring the menopause into future products and services, better signposting is something that a lot of companies need to work on,” states Jackson. “There are so many products out there that can improve the menopause experience, but consumers need to be educated on which products can help.”Despite 15.5 million menopausal and perimenopausal women in the UK and around 1 billion worldwide, there is still a stigma surrounding this topic.

All Holland & Barrett store colleagues have undergone training to recognize the signs and symptoms of menopause and can offer advice to help guide women to the right natural supplements and remedies.

Some of the natural products that Holland & Barrett offers to alleviate symptoms of menopause are black cohosh, A.Vogel menoforce sage tablets, Holland & Barrett soya isoflavones with vitamin B6 and Nature’s Garden red clover blossoms with vitamin B6. Also, the company has a menopause test kit that tests for menopause in detecting the presence of the follicle-stimulating hormone.

Holland & Barrett previously had a campaign to improve women’s menopause experience called ME.NO.PAUSE.

Spotlighting menopause
Industry players have shown interest in menopause and how it affects women. In a survey in September, menopause supplements provider Equelle found a lack of communication between women and their health care providers about menopause.

By Nicole Kerr