But that doesn’t imply Walgreens will permit its core drugstore enterprise to grow to be an afterthought, says Tracey Brown, president of Walgreens’ $109 billion retail enterprise and chief buyer officer. Drugstores, with their wellness merchandise and ubiquity within the U.S., are instrumental to the corporate’s well being care push, says the chief, who oversees a 9,000-store fleet. The chain’s attain, she provides, positions it to supply well being companies past its conventional choices, like strep throat assessments, and promote extra wellness-focused gadgets, like over-the-counter listening to aids.

“There is a need for alternative care settings. I believe that the future of care will actually happen in the likes of Walgreens,” she tells Fortune. Village MD, through which Walgreens will nonetheless maintain a 53% stake after its acquisition of Summit Health closes, and the CityMD chain, are two such different care clinics. Both supply pressing and acute care companies at 680 places, offering Americans with choices apart from the hospital or a health care provider’s workplace.

But Brown’s imaginative and prescient for Walgreens’ shops is to proceed promoting all the things from toothpaste to potato chips whereas filling a necessity these clinics can’t, corresponding to a drop-in session with a pharmacist on treating a pores and skin situation. That means, Walgreens’ retail shops gained’t overlap with Village MD and CityMD and might certainly complement them. This rethinking of the chain’s retail technique comes as inflation is hurting Walgreens’ basic merchandise gross sales, and far of that enterprise migrates on-line. Pivoting to well being service choices helps drive customers to its hundreds of retail shops throughout the U.S.

Brown, who has diabetes and was CEO of the American Diabetes Association earlier than becoming a member of the pharmacy chain a yr in the past, says the Walgreens drugstore of the long run will nonetheless promote family items, like cleansing merchandise, snacks, and comfortable drinks, regardless of her acknowledgment of the latter’s dangerous well being results. “I don’t want people telling me I cannot have popcorn or whatever,” the 55-year-old says. But sooner or later, every retailer may have a larger means to tailor its services and products to replicate the area people’s wants.

Her final purpose? To make an area Walgreens retailer “your convenient health and wellness destination.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

Fortune: What will Walgreens drugstores seem like in just a few years? Still a spot to select up drug prescriptions together with a tube of toothpaste?

Brown: What COVID taught us is that there’s a want for different care settings. I consider that the way forward for care will really occur within the likes of Walgreens. The front-of-store (basic merchandise) will nonetheless be part of our footprint and a bodily field the place you may get what you want from a well being care perspective. But what you’ll begin to see evolve is our pharmacy and pharmacists’ position, the place we’re not simply meting out medicines, however we’re really offering care.

Like what?

Like get a take a look at for strep throat, or should you suppose you will have a urinary tract an infection, get examined there.

Many retail analysts fault main drugstore chains for providing unappealing retail environments. Could the “front-of-store” grow to be an afterthought as Walgreens pushes additional into well being care companies?

We don’t suppose the position of front-of-store slips. There’s little question that individuals’s habits have modified in recent times due to COVID, and shopper visitors has lowered. But I believe the entrance of the shop is simply as necessary as a result of there’s a need for services and products which might be extraordinarily necessary to caring for your general well being and well-being.

You wish to tout the scale of your retailer fleet.

What drives us is our bodily footprint, with over 9,000 places all around the nation. Our means to all the time be accessible for well being and wellness wants will proceed to drive us.

But with commodities making up a whole lot of front-of-store merchandise and the expansion of e-commerce, may you see the sq. footage for basic merchandise lowering to permit extra room for scientific companies?

From the start, [founder] Charles Walgreen was in regards to the neighborhood by state, area, and retailer, and that’s a part of the magic in growing belief. So you will note our format change based mostly on the neighborhood it’s in as a result of we’ve got the info, information, and insights into relationships and permit that to information us.

Concretely, what does that seem like?

For instance, in a neighborhood the place individuals don’t have many persistent circumstances or wants and are extra about shortly and effectively getting what they want, we might lean on supply, our ‘order online, pick up in store’ service, our app. If we’re in a neighborhood the place extra individuals have a number of persistent circumstances, our shops might have a bit more room for companies.

Last yr, Walgreens closed a lot of shops. Are you proud of the scale of your fleet?

Yes. We are in lots of communities the place others have left, and we’re nonetheless in some communities the place we’re the place individuals go to get their milk and eggs. We nonetheless wish to do this as a result of it’s an necessary a part of general well being and well-being.

You have maternal diabetes stemming out of your being pregnant on your now 19-year-old daughter and have been CEO of the American Diabetes Association. How has that formed the way you strategy your job at Walgreens?

My daughter was 5 when she requested me if I used to be going to die from diabetes. That was a life-changing second and why I left Walmart for the ADA. I used to be pissed off with the plight of individuals dwelling with diabetes on this nation.

And what expertise did your time at ADA offer you?

I discovered the ins and outs of the well being care ecosystem and all gamers, from the federal government to pharmaceutical corporations, insurers, pharmacy advantages managers, wholesalers, and retailers. I started to grasp that remodeling the well being and well-being of individuals on this nation required a unique type of community than the present one.

Last yr, Walgreens closed some shops in larger San Francisco due to shoplifting. Is that also a difficulty?

It’s nonetheless an enormous drawback at each degree. There’s a job that each one of us need to play too. There’s a job for the federal authorities, state and metropolis governments, and a job for us pretty much as good company residents. We want secure locations for individuals to buy and get care, so we’re persevering with to do issues on our finish round shoplifting, like extra guards. We don’t wish to be out of a neighborhood.

On a visit to Walgreens in Lower Manhattan final week, many extra on a regular basis gadgets had been underneath lock and key, one thing frequent at different retailers too.It’s extra trouble for consumers. Isn’t it finally counterproductive?

That just isn’t the expertise that any of us needs to have. You talked about our rivals. We’re all working collectively on this. It’s a typical drawback.

Your boss Roz Brewer stated earlier this yr that Walgreens is trying into stopping the sale of cigarettes, a transfer CVS made in 2014. Any replace?

We completely are going to get out of cigarettes. The pivot towards general well being and well-being means we’ve bought to get this situation in alignment. But it’s difficult. It’s a course of.

As somebody grappling with diabetes, how do you are feeling about Walgreens promoting sweet, soda, and gadgets of that sort?

You’re going to see us have more healthy choices, and we’ve got an obligation to teach individuals. But on the finish of the day, we give individuals decisions. As an individual dwelling with diabetes, I do know carbohydrates. And I do know carbohydrates have a unfavorable affect on my blood sugars, however I don’t need individuals telling me that I can not have popcorn or no matter.

Get to know Brown:

• Brown has performed drums since elementary faculty and significantly enjoys heavy rock, R&B, and hardcore rap. Phil Collins is her favourite drummer.
• She performed basketball for the University of Delaware, the place she obtained a bachelor’s diploma in chemical engineering.
• At Procter & Gamble, the place she labored from 1989 to 1992, she was on the crew that developed the clear model of Ivory cleaning soap, which till then was solely pearl white, thought-about an enormous breakthrough in that class.