Jenny Craig, Inc.

Jenny Craig, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Weight Loss, Weight Management, and Nutrition
Founded	1983 in Melbourne, Australia
Headquarters	Carlsbad, California
Key people	Monty Sharma, CEO
Number of employees	3,000 (as of 2015)
Parent	North Castle Partners
Website	jennycraig.com

Jenny Craig, Inc., often known simply as Jenny Craig, is an American weight loss, weight management, and nutrition company founded in 1983 by Jenny Craig and her husband, Sidney Craig. The program was started in Melbourne, Australia and began operations in the United States in 1985. Today, the company is headquartered in Carlsbad, California, and has been a part of North Castle Partners since 2013.

The company has more than 700 weight management centres in Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico. The program combines individual weight management counseling with a menu of frozen meals and other foods, which are distributed through its centers or shipped directly to clients.

The weight management program combines nutrition and physical activity with counseling, to help clients change lifestyle and eating habits. The goal of the program is that once clients reach their desired weight levels, they no longer need to rely on the program's prepackaged food, planned menus, or consultations to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Jenny Craig offers weight loss programs tailored to women, men, people with diabetes and seniors.

Clients are provided with individual, private counseling sessions with program consultants. Consultants are not required to have nutrition or health professional certifications, although they are trained by the company to provide education and support to clients. Members join any one of a number of types of plans and then purchase prepackaged food from their local center. (The company also directly ships dry and frozen foods in chilled containers to clients that join the Jenny Craig At Home program.) Initially, clients are given a planned menu to follow, utilizing the company's line of frozen and dry foods, along with grocery items like dairy and vegetables. Clients later are able to customize their own menus using the same range of foods. Members begin using a menu with one to two days each of non-program foods once they have reached the "halfway point" to their weight goals.

The foods on menu offered by the Jenny Craig diet plan are designed to meet the USDA Dietary Guidelines. They feature fruits, vegetables, whole grains, reduced fat milk products, and "heart healthy" fats, but also include lean meat, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts. Cholesterol, sodium, added sugars and saturated fats are low in the foods.