Supermarket trial reveals shoppers can be nudged toward healthy choices

19 Oct 2020 --- A year-long collaboration between supermarkets and food manufacturers in the UK to improve public health has proven the powerful influence retailers can have on consumer diets.

Simple tactics to encourage healthier purchases saw fruit and vegetable sales increase by 13 percent, along with a 19 percent drop in french fries sales and a 22 percent drop in confectionery sales.

These were some of the key findings of the 12-month trial led by Collaboration for Healthier Lives (CHL), Guy’s and St Thomas, a London-based charity. Results from the trials were analyzed at the University of Oxford. 

Fourteen supermarket chains collaborated with manufacturers on interventions that could alter consumer purchasing choices. A total of 34 intervention techniques based on behavioral science theories were trialed.

These included pricing and promotion changes, product placements, nutritional labeling and social feedback techniques.

Significant impacts
Supermarkets participating in the trials showed remarkable differences in sales resulting from these tactics.

By using promotions aimed at children, Sainsbury’s increased sales of fruit by 387 percent. Following the end of the trials, this dropped to 17 percent.  

After introducing a healthy option on frozen french fries, manufacturer McCain’s witness sales of its standard packs fall by 28 percent. 

Tesco revealed a 24 percent drop in seasonal confectionery sales after removing display units for Easter chocolates. This accounted for 2,450 fewer units being sold each week across 35 stores.

Other trials produced statistically insignificant results that the CHL says need to be investigated further. Nutritional information on packaging is often only read by a minority of consumers.

Top tactics
CHL’s Behavioral Insights Team marked out some of the most effective tactics utilized in the trials to change consumer buying choices with pricing and promotions, availability, positioning, labeling and social feedback. 

Creating financial incentives to purchase healthier foods is often highly effective, as are advertising promotions. This is especially the case for children’s products; influential messengers such as kids’ characters and ‘gamified’ campaigns for collecting tokens can be strong attractions. 

These kinds of promotions should be strictly limited to healthy food products only, the report recommends.

Manufacturers are encouraged to shift the bulk of their products onto healthy options, making them more available and accessible. Sainsbury’s biscuits and McCain’s oven chips have both had success in this.

Placing confectionary at supermarket checkouts should stop immediately and be replaced by healthy snacking options. Product placement in stores has a significant impact on consumer choices, as does the quantity of shelf space a product is given. Limiting the ease of access to unhealthy products showed great success in the trials.

Nutritional information on packaging is often only read by a minority of consumers. This can be addressed by making simpler, color-coded health warnings on product shelves. Traffic light labeling and prompts, such as ‘stop’ signs at confectionary aisles, also showed success in the trials.

Finally, giving customers feedback on their shopping choices lets them know how their diets may compare to others. This type of social pressure was also proven to be highly effective.

Ultimately, the report recommends making healthy options the easy options. 

Turning the tide on obesity 
While these results are significant, they were limited in scope and, in some cases, lacked control groups by which to compare results. CHL says that more trials need to be implemented simultaneously and in a more significant number of places.

Businesses need to start seeing improvements in health as an imperative, the report says, and partnerships should support this with other companies and NGOs. The tactics used in the trials should be scaled up and further tested.

Many more such collaborations and trials are needed to turn the tide of obesity and other related health problems, CHL concluded.

By Louis Gore-Langton