Healthy Food Guide announces final print edition

The owners of Healthy Food Guide magazine say the November edition will be its last print run.

After that, the magazine will be online only.

The magazine has been printed for 15 years and provides consumerfocused information on healthy food with a focus on nutrition as the basis of good health.

Founding editor and later editorat-large Niki Bezzant said she felt really sad about it.

‘‘It was my baby for a long time.’’ Bezzant said the magazine had fared better than others in the market, holding its position for a relatively long time. However, over the past couple of years, the decline of print media had caught up with the magazine, she said, which had seen readers migrate online and become less willing to pay for content.

She said it was still the topselling food magazine, with a current readership of about 290,000.

On the website, Healthy Life Media managing director Phil Ryan said its audience had increasingly moved online and the print format was becoming unsustainable.

Ryan said it would continue to invest in its website to serve that digital audience with ‘‘evidencebased, expert advice on healthy eating and improving lifestyle’’.

‘‘For those who prefer the print version of the magazine, we are expecting the Australian edition of the magazine will be in shops from late November,’’ he said. Bezzant said the Healthy Food

Guide had been the bastion of independent and locally produced food and nutrition content.

‘‘I think it is a bit of a shame for evidence-based nutrition messages. We have had this great mainstream magazine totally based on that and that is going to be gone from print.’’