Wal-Mart worker protests and walk-offs planned for Thursday night and Black Friday had the retailer taking them seriously enough to send a top executive to the TODAY show this morning to downplay the story. 

Widespread picketing was not expected, Duncan Mac Naughton, Wal-Mart's chief merchandising and marketing officer, told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie. "We'll have 4,000 stores ready to go," said Naughton, staffed by "one million associates serving our customer." 

The group behind the protest actions, OUR Walmart, told TODAY they are striking to protest what they say is manager retaliation against any employees who complain about working conditions. 

"We have a  really open culture of listening to our associates, it's based on integrity, respect for the individual," Mac Naughton told TODAY. 

An OUR Walmart organizer, William Fletcher, 23, disputed this, telling TODAY that Walmart's "open door policy" where any associate can speak to a manager to bring up issues was instead used to "find out who's complaining so they can silence them with indirect threats. "They're very good at doing that while still staying within the law." 

Wal-Mart said they were "really confident" that Black Friday will go off without a hitch. "What you're seeing in the media and in the news is a small group of Wal-Mart associates in a select number of stores," said Mac Naughton, "complimented by a number of of non-Wal-Mart associates that are paid by the union." 

Still, the matter is large enough for Wal-Mart to have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), arguing that the protests were an unlawful attempt to disrupt its business. The complaint alleged that the group running the protests, the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart), was backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), and was more about building union membership than fighting for worker rights. 

The UCFW filed its own complaint that day, alleging that Walmart had directed store managers to make workers fearful for their jobs if they participated in the actions. 

The legal maneuvers may be too late to prevent the strikes from disrupting one of the biggest shopping days of the year for Wal-Mart. In a statement released Tuesday, the NLRB said that it was unlikely to come to a decision before Friday. 

With stores opening at 8 p.m. on Thursday and walk-offs planned throughout the shopping event, consumer chaos is a threat, depending on how many workers end up participating. 

"Workers will be walking off the job left and right over Thanksgiving," UCFW Janna Pea spokesperson told TODAY.  

Pea couldn't give an estimate of how many walkoffs there would be, but said that there would be protest actions at over 1,000 Wal-Mart stores, ranging from employees not showing up for work, to workers walking off in the middle of their shift, to community allies passing out brochures outside the stores.

Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images file

Last year's scene at a San Diego Best Buy store. Expect similar lines this year.

The most hyped and hectic shopping day of the year is just hours away. If you intend to fight the crowds to grab some bargains, you need to have a plan. 

A number of major retailers are opening earlier than ever – moving the start of Black Friday to Thanksgiving. Some have staggered the door-buster sales. 

The newspapers are filled with special Black Friday circulars. You can see most of what’s available  at sites such as bfads.net, blackfriday.com and blackfriday.gotadeal.com. 

The editors at dealnews.com analyzed these ads and concluded that some products are being offered at all-time low prices – but not all.  For example, you’ll find the best prices on toys not on Black Friday, but instead two weeks before Christmas. Dealnews put together a list of 10 things not to buy on Black Friday. 

Hate crowds?  You might be able to shop from home. While some door-buster deals can only be snagged at the store, most Black Friday specials can be found online.  Dealnews found that 70 percent of the deals available at Wal-Mart and Target stores on Thanksgiving last year were also available online for the same price or less.  

Let’s go shopping! 
Here’s a rundown of what’s happening at some of the nation’s biggest retailers (in alphabetical order): 

• Best Buy: The electronics retailer starts its Thanksgiving Weekend sale at midnight on Friday. To make things easier, they hand out tickets two hours before the store opens. BestBuy.com is open on Thanksgiving. 
• JCPenney: This is the store’s only sale of the year. Prices on hundreds of items (online and in the store) will be reduced for one day only, starting at 6 a.m. on Black Friday. Store employees will hand out holiday buttons that offer the chance to win one of 20 million gifts, including gift cards, merchandise and vacations. This promotion starts on Black Friday and runs through Christmas Eve. 
• Kmart: The store’s three day sale is the earliest of the bunch and there are three rounds of doorbusters – both in-store and online. Round one is on Thanksgiving Day from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the stores and 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. online. Round two goes from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. at the stores and 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. online. Round three, on Black Friday, runs between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. at the stores and 4 a.m. and 1 p.m. online. Did you get all that? 
• Kohl’s: Things get going Wednesday as 500 Early Bird specials went on sale at Kohls.com. The stores open at midnight on Friday. Shoppers get $15 Kohl’s Cash for every $50 they spend in store or online, with no limit during this “Operation: Black Friday” sales event. Kohl’s “Dream Receipts” promotion starts on Friday and runs through Christmas Eve. Every day, one shopper at each store and online will be picked at random and Kohl’s will pick up the tab. No purchase necessary. 
• PetSmart: Pet parents will find Black Friday deals online beginning Thanksgiving Day. Some pre-Black Friday items, discounted by as much as 75 percent, are already available online. Retail stores open at 7 a.m. on Friday. 
• Sears: The bargain-hunting (both online and in the stores) starts at 8 p.m. on Thursday and continues through 10 p.m. on Black Friday. Sears says it is offering more than a thousand doorbuster deals during its 26-hour sales event broken into two groups. Some go on sale at right away. The rest are available starting at 4 a.m. Black Friday. Check the Sears Thanksgiving and Black Friday circular for a savings pass or online purchase code that gives you an extra 10 percent off when you spend $40 or more on clothing, intimates, sleepwear, accessories, fragrances and cosmetics. “Shop Your Way” members get extra perks for this sale. Check out the deals and door-busters at sears.com/Black Friday. 
• Staples: The world’s largest office products company promises savings online and at the store. Early Bird Deals are available on Black Friday from 5 a.m. until noon. Find savings of $200 or more on select HP personal computers with Windows 8.  Online orders are shipped for free. A new service this year: you can reserve products online and pick them up at the store, normally within two hours of ordering. 
• Target: Black Friday starts at 9 p.m. on Thursday. That’s the earliest Target has ever opened on Thanksgiving Day. Also new this year, additional doorbusters will go on sale at 4 a.m. on Black Friday.  Shoppers who spend $50 or more on apparel, accessories or home products between 4 a.m. and noon on Friday will get a $10 Target gift card to use on a future purchase. Target says its website will have exclusive discounts starting Thanksgiving Day. 
• Toys R Us: The fun starts at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Look for the Thanksgiving weekend circular in newspapers on Thursday. Those sale items will also be posted at Toysrus.com. You can see some of the deals right now on the company’s Facebook page. The first 200 customers in line when each store opens will receive a free “Great Big Goody Bag” filled with stocking-stuffers and valued at $30. For those who don’t want to give up their Thanksgiving to shop, Toys R Us and Babies R Us will offer a new selection of doorbuster deals at 5 a.m. Friday morning. 
• Wal-Mart: The doors open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, two hours earlier than last year. This is just the first of three Black Friday sales at Wal-Mart. The electronics event begins at 10 p.m. and the third wave of door-busters starts at 5 a.m. on Friday and lasts through the weekend. Something else new this year at Wal-Mart: the “1-Hour In-Stock Guarantee” on Thanksgiving night. Customers who are inside the store or in-line between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. are “guaranteed” to get super-low prices on the Apple iPad2, an Emerson 32” TV and LG Blue-ray player. If any of these items sell out before 11 p.m., and the customer pays for it before midnight, the product will be shipped to that Wal-Mart store for pick up before Christmas.

(You can print a simple list of Black Friday 2012 store hours at Cheapism.com)

More Black Friday Resources

• ConsumerMan: How to snag door-buster deals
• 10 Tips to Bag a Bargain on Black Friday
• Black Friday diehards will do just about anything for a bargain  
• Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart: Who has the best deal? 
• Tips on how not to bust your budget over the holidays 
• Gift cards are popular, but beware of fees on some

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website.

Target is getting more aggressive with price matching this holiday.

By Raechel Conover, Cheapism.com

In the perennial war among discount superstores Wal-Mart, Target, and Kmart for shoppers' dollars, the edge goes to the retailer with the best and the most bargains. Cheapism found that Wal-Mart scores a clear win with the cheapest prices and largest selection and holds its own in other realms that frugal and savvy customers consider important -- convenience, a pleasant shopping environment, and products they consider a good value. Target is pressing in from a position of strength and Kmart, once the biggest of the three, no longer competes in any aspect we considered important.

For this in-depth comparison of Wal-Mart, Target, and Kmart, in the 50th anniversary year for each, Cheapism took a multi-pronged approach. We sent a researcher into each store to check prices and evaluate the shopping experience. We also conducted consumer and expert interviews, fielded a Facebook poll, and analyzed online reviews.

By the Numbers
On price alone, Wal-Mart leads the pack. When we totaled up a shopping cart of 30 identical and like items, including clothing, electronics, groceries, health and beauty supplies, home goods, and toys, the bill came to $1,776.15 at Wal-Mart, $1,866.10 at Target, and $2,092.82 at Kmart. What's more, Wal-Mart's price-matching policy doesn't require consumers to show a competitor's print ad in order to pay a lower price. Target is upping the ante this holiday season, however, by extending its own guarantee to online prices from Nov. 1 to Dec. 16.

Price Isn't Everything
While its prices are modestly higher on many items, "Tar-zhay" enjoys a reputation for relative quality and attention to design, particularly in areas such as apparel and home goods. Consumers gravitate to Target's clothing lines for their fashionable styling and durability. A Facebook poll respondent extols the retailer's other store brands, saying that the Up & Up baby products, for example, parallel pricier name brands. Wal-Mart carries a more basic selection of clothing, including heavy work clothes such as coveralls and thermal flannel shirts. Kmart showcases a couple of celebrity lines, but its offerings didn't register with the sources we queried.

Wal-Mart and Target appear to field plenty of employees on the shopping floor who were almost uniformly friendly and accommodating during our site visits. Kmart, by contrast, seemed woefully understaffed and the few employees present weren't all that willing to help out. One irritant common to all three discount retailers: long waits and other problems at checkout. We found that too few lanes were open to handle the crush of shoppers and numerous consumers posted negative experiences on our Facebook page.

The atmosphere varies by location, of course, but generally shoppers perceive Target as well-organized, tidy, and calm. Wal-Mart strikes some consumers as frenzied and crowded, a tad overwhelming, and occasionally in need of a quick cleanup, according to our research. Kmart disappoints with understocked shelves, messy displays, poor signage, and generally scruffy facilities.

Goods and Services
All three retailers stock a variety of products in numerous departments, from foodstuffs to office supplies to jewelry and more. For the most part, Target and especially Wal-Mart have become one-stop-shopping destinations. With thousands of stores scattered about the country, they are within convenient reach of many consumers. Target is expanding the grocery offerings in more than 200 stores this year but still has a ways to go to catch up with Wal-Mart, which includes full-service grocery departments complete with bakeries and delis in its 3,000 Wal-Mart Supercenters. Kmart stocks a more limited assortment of products -- particularly groceries -- in addition to charging higher prices.

Pharmacies at all three retailers' locations sell generic medications at low prices, although Kmart levies a $10 annual fee to obtain low-cost prescriptions. Some Target stores and many Wal-Mart locations contain health clinics and vision centers, as well. Kmart's health services don't extend much farther than flu shots and periodic "health events" such as blood pressure checks.

Wal-Mart and Target both feature photo processing. Wal-Mart provides the greatest variety of financial services, but all three retailers issue credit and/or debit cards. We found that an offer of 5% savings on all purchases and free shipping for online orders has made Target's REDcards a consumer favorite. Kmart stands out only for its well-known layaway program, for which it's waiving the service fee through Nov. 21. Wal-Mart supports the layaway option, as well, but only during the holiday shopping season.

The three stores also maintain extensive online inventories, and Wal-Mart's website includes a marketplace for third-party sellers. Wal-Mart.com offers free shipping to a local store and some items qualify for free home delivery if the order exceeds $45. Eligible items at Target must total $50 for free shipping. Kmart offers a fee-based membership for frequent shoppers that comes with free shipping on many items. In online reviews, consumers cite shipping-related problems with all three retailers.

Ranking the Discount Retailers
What factored into Cheapism's final verdict:

1. Wal-Mart

• Lowest prices, generous ad-matching policy
• Thousands of Supercenters with vast inventory, especially in grocery
• User-friendly website with myriad offerings and free Site to Store shipping
• Full selection of services, including photo developing, portrait studio, health clinics, vision centers, and holiday-season layaway

2. Target

• Fashionable clothing and home goods, reputation for quality
• Modest prices
• Clean stores with well-organized displays and helpful employees
• Calm atmosphere that makes for easy shopping

3. Kmart

• Highest prices
• Limited selection, especially in grocery
• Disgruntled and unavailable employees
• Empty shelves and unkempt displays

More from Cheapism:
Black Friday apps
Black Friday sales resources
Black Friday toy deals review

Wal-Mart Stores Inc's U.S. employees will pay between 8 and 36 percent more in premiums for medical coverage in 2013, and now some of the 1.4 million workers at the nation's largest private employer say they will forgo coverage altogether.

In mailings sent to employees for its recently completed open-enrollment period, Wal-Mart noted that its rates would increase because healthcare costs continue to rise.

For its most popular plan, which covers individuals, the payment per bi-weekly paycheck is going up by $2, or 13 percent. Other plans will see larger increases as the world's largest retailer, known for low prices, tries to control its own costs.

Still, Wal-Mart said average costs its employees will bear should only rise about 4.4 percent in 2013, due to the elimination of some high premium plans, its move to offer free heart and spine surgery to most employees at six health care centers, and provision of other services, such as access to a healthcare adviser. That is less than the 9 percent average increase expected for all American workers next year, according to a study by human resources firm Aon Hewitt, though it isn't clear whether the figures are comparable.

Wal-Mart's example could be a blueprint for other employers trying to manage their costs while also preparing to meet the requirements of President Barack Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act.

The law, the biggest reform to America's healthcare in decades, is intended to make healthcare less expensive but critics question whether it will succeed. It will also take years to fully implement. In the meantime, Wal-Mart and other large companies are trying to control their healthcare costs, which have been rising an average of more than 6 percent per year.

Wal-Mart pays for preventive care such as routine checkups. However, workers must pay deductibles of at least $1,750 before Wal-Mart covers 80 percent of the cost of other care such as doctor visits and diagnostic tests.

The retailer will also defray some costs with a separate contribution of $250 or $500 for individuals, and double that range for families.

Some workers say the price hikes for next year have pushed them to drop coverage.

"I really can't even afford it now so for it to go up even a dollar for me is a stretch," said Colby Harris, who said he makes $8.90 per hour and takes home less than $20,000 per year working in Wal-Mart's produce department in Lancaster, Texas.

Harris, a 22-year-old smoker, was set to see his cost per paycheck rise to $29.60 from $25.40. He says he has decided not to sign up for coverage.

More than half of Wal-Mart's U.S. employees sign up for its healthcare plans, which cover 1.1 million people, including dependents. Store workers across the country are offered the same plans as executives back at Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

"Over the past few years we've all seen the cost of health care continue to rise nationwide, and 2013 is no different," Wal-Mart said in a statement. "As a result, we are adjusting rates for some of our health care plan choices. We are doing our best to keep health care costs as low as possible for our associates."

Barbara Andridge, who works at the Wal-Mart in Placerville, California, decided to drop out of a Wal-Mart plan provided for the retailer by a health management organization when she found out that the cost was set to nearly double to $60 a month.

"Sixty dollars isn't a lot to some people but when I have to think about buying winter clothes for my kids or sending my daughter to college I have to think of what is best for my children," she said. "Hopefully I'm making the right decision."

Andridge, who makes $12.05 an hour and said her husband was laid off this year, knows that she would have had to pay the same $60 monthly premium no matter how many hours she worked.

"Living paycheck to paycheck, I made the decision to swallow my pride and go and get county health," she said in reference to Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid health care program.

Wal-Mart has been touting its efforts to improve healthcare for its employees, including its October announcement that it would cover all costs, including travel, for costly, complicated heart and spine surgery at the six centers.

Nearly two-thirds of Wal-Mart employees sign up to cover only themselves. Rates covering individuals will rise $2 to $11 per paycheck, or 13 percent to 23 percent, according to documents viewed by Reuters. When plans covering families are included, rates rise anywhere from 8 to 36 percent.

Wal-Mart does offer some plans with premiums that are well below the national average.

Wal-Mart's lowest-cost and most popular associate-only medical plan will cost $17.40 per two-week pay period in 2013, up $2 from 2012. Costs for a single non-tobacco-using employee range from that to $59.30 per paycheck for 2013 (or $34.80 to $118.60 every four weeks).

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2012 survey, the average monthly U.S. worker contribution this year was $79 per month for single coverage.

U.S. premiums are expected to rise 6.3 percent on average in 2013, human resources firm Aon Hewitt said in October, but premiums are just part of the costs story.

Newly hired part-time employees at Wal-Mart will have to work a minimum of 30 hours a week, up from 24 hours previously, before they qualify for coverage. The Affordable Care Act only requires larger employers to provide coverage for their staff who work at least 30 hours per week.

Other changes to Wal-Mart's 2013 plans, such as raising premiums, would have happened regardless of health reform, as it tries to control rising healthcare costs, the company said.

Harris and Andridge, who are dropping their coverage, are part of a group called OUR Walmart. Higher healthcare costs are one of the issues the group wants Wal-Mart to address, along with concerns such as wages and scheduling.

"Even if the plan only went up, let's say 50 cents, when you're barely making it every literal cent counts," said Harris.

OUR Walmart, which is not a labor union, is backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International union, which represents workers at major grocery chains that compete with Wal-Mart. Members of OUR Walmart pay the organization dues of $5 per month.

Related stories:

• States get more time to plan health insurance exchanges
• A consumer's guide to health reform
• Workers opt out of company health plans

In 1995, Jewel skyrocketed into fame with the hit “Who Will Save Your Soul.” Her most recent YouTube video has commenters wondering the same thing about her. 

The singer-songwriter sang a new Wal-Mart themed children's song at the retail giant’s company meeting and the online critics are howling. 

Wal-Mart posted the clipand it now has 146 likes and over 2,145 dislikes. That's a hatred ratio of 93 percent, beating out Rebecca Black's ear-curdling “Friday,” which clocks in at only a 75 hate/like ratio. 

The song tweaks the lyrics in “The Supermarket Song,” a track off her new album, The Merry Goes Round, to be about Wal-Mart:

“I wanna say welcome to a wonderland

An amusement park full of delights and 

The best part is they have one in every town

It's your local Wal-Mart where you can ride a cart around."

She continues to list some of Wal-Mart many items available for sale:

"They have stacks of candy in every aisle

And every kind of cereal that goes on for miles

Flour and milk that can be made into brown gravy for supper Sunday

They have 50-pound bags of chicken nuggets

Yummy yogurt by the bucket

Shelves and shelves of homemade stuffing

Oh what a treat ...”

 YouTube comments rang with chimes of “sell out” and “sad.” 

“This goes in the Guinness Book of World records for most pitiful sell out in music,” wrote a commenter named cuff links.

Flon26 wrote, “Jewel's soul now for sale in every Wal-Mart for only $2.99.”

Jewel's manager Virginia Davis told The Huffington Postthat Jewel didn't get any money for the appearance and is not a Wal-Mart spokesperson. 

As she's done with her previous releases, Jewel is partnering with Wal-Mart to distribute the new children's album in their stores.

More money and business news:

• Why we get a kick out of deceiving retailers
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• Sign up for our Business newsletter

The Forbes billionaires list isn’t quite a He-Man Woman Haters Club, but it’s not exactly a picture of gender parity either. The list has far more men than women, even though a record 104 women made the list this time.

Of note about the women involved in the Forbes ranking:

Christy Walton of Wal-Mart family fame was the richest at $25.3 billion. She pulled down almost $200 million in dividends from the world’s largest retailer this year.

Europe's richest woman, France’s Liliane Bettencourt, made her money from L’Oreal. Bettencourt is worth $24 billion.

Jacqueline Mars is is worth $13.8 billion. She and her brothers own the world’s largest candy company.

Savitri Jindal, of India, is the richest Asian on the list at $10.9 billion. Her fortune took a big hit as the steel business in her family’s conglomerate was forced to cut production after a court decree against iron ore mining in the southern part of the country.

Laurene Powell Jobs was added to the list after her husband, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, died last year. The inheritance made her worth $9 billion.

Miuccia Prada, who runs the fashion empire her grandfather Mario Prada founded, is worth $6.8 billion.

Yang Huiyan, China’s richest person in 2007 at $16.2 billion, has seen her net worth crumble to a paltry $4.7 billion this year. Most of her money has come from the family’s Hong Kong real estate business. Don’t worry about her too much. At 30, she’s among the youngest on the billionaires list and has a few years to earn it all back.

Chinese gambling mogul Pansy Ho is a newcomer to the list at $4.5 billion. One of 16 children of the mogul that developed the island of Macau into China’s version of Las Vegas, she runs her own company.

The chair of French advertising giant Publicis Groupe, Elisabeth Badinter, is another newcomer to the list at $1.1 billion.

Sara Blakely was 29 when she invested her then-life savings, $5,000, in an underwear venture. Spanx ended up becoming one of Oprah’s Favorite Things. She is another newcomer at $1 billion.

Complete list of Forbes billionaires 2012
Forbes.com: The world’s billionaire women
Forbes.com: The world’s billionaire newcomers
Forbes.com: The world’s youngest billionaires

Eli Meir Kaplan / The Atlantic

A produce aisle of a Wal-Mart is seen in this file photo.

Wal-Mart is unveiling a simple icon that it says will help consumers make a snap decision about whether a food is healthy, without delving into the nitty-gritty of the nutrition label.

The move by the nation's biggest retailer to label some food products as "Great For You," being unveiled Tuesday, could be a significant development in the fight against obesity because of the company's enormous influence in the marketplace, over both consumers and food vendors eager to sell into the Wal-Mart supply chain.

There have been fumbles in the past. In 2009, major food makers backed off a plan to label foods as “smart choices” after the Food and Drug Administration, which has been working on a standard system for such logos, noted that many competing nutrition symbols could be confusing. At the time, some food makers were criticized for trying to market items such as mayonnaise and sugary cereals as “smart choices.”

The FDA has not finished its standards, but Wal-Mart is moving ahead to slap a green jumping-jack-shaped icon onto certain in-house Great Value and Marketside products as well as on fresh fruits and vegetables.

Wal-Mart will provide detailed criteria for the "Great For You" label on its website but is trying to give an easy visual cue to busy shoppers roaming the grocery aisles in its thousands of stores.

Wal-Mart plans to slap this label on produce and some house-brand packaged food items.

“If you’re walking down the aisles you’ll basically be able to see the better choices,” said Leslie Dach, the company’s executive vice president for corporate affairs, in a news briefing.

Wal-Mart announced plans to develop the icon last year, as part of a heavily promoted initiative endorsed by first lady Michelle Obama as part of her push to fight obesity. Wal-Mart also has promised to reduce prices on healthier items, offer more stores in underserved “food deserts” and reduce sodium, sugar and trans fats in certain packaged foods.

The first “Great For You” icons will start appearing in produce aisles in April, company executives said. The labels then will gradually roll out on certain store-branded packaged items throughout the year.

Andrea Thomas, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of sustainability, said other companies that supply food to Wal-Mart could choose to use the icon if they wished. If consumers start shifting their behavior as a result of the labels, she said that could provide an incentive to other food makers to adopt the system.

Christina Roberto, a doctoral student with Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity who is studying food labeling, said the idea of a simple label is a good one – as long as the criteria for what gets the label is sound.

“It will be important to think about, ‘What nutrition criteria are they using?’” she said.

Wal-Mart said it conducted rigorous tests to make sure no unusual products squeaked through in its guidelines.

“There are no candy bars that would qualify,” Thomas said.

The company said it developed its criteria by looking at government guidelines and working with health organizations and other parties interested in healthy eating.

For example:

• Raisins will get the icon, but dried fruit with sugar added would not.
• Plain oatmeal qualifies, but sweetened oatmeal does not.
• Brown rice will get the label. White rice will not.
• Plain or artificially sweetened yogurt makes the cut, but yogurt sweetened with sugar does not.
• Skim milk would carry the icon, but whole milk would not.

Some decisions were harder than others. For example eggs ultimately were included because they are a good, low-cost source of protein despite concerns over cholesterol, Thomas said.

Thomas said Wal-Mart looked closely at FDA definitions to avoid potential conflicts but was not willing to wait for the FDA to come out with a standardized labeling system.

FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said in an email that the government agency is still working to create a standard front-of-package labeling system, and appreciates Wal-Mart's interest in making a tool intended to help consumers make healthy choices.

Other retailers also have experimented with offering healthy food labels, as part of efforts to address nationwide obesity problems.

For example, grocery chain Supervalu has a “nutrition iQ” system that uses color-coded shelf tags to identify which foods at its stores are healthier.

But Wal-Mart, as the nation's biggest grocer, inherently has more power and influence.

Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst with NPD Group and an expert on eating habits, said new health labels tend to get noticed because consumers are always looking for something different.

But he said his research has consistently shown that people think about other things first, such as taste and value.

“Health is always a secondary consideration in the foods and beverages that you eat,” Balzer said.

What do you think of Wal-Mart's new labels? Tell us on Facebook.

Related:

Wal-Mart, other big boxes try out smaller boxes

Food makers’ challenge: Reduce salt, keep taste