Cutting checkout crisps and choc slims down buys
UNHEALTHY SNACKING PURCHASES DOWN BY A FIFTH
A TEAM including Newcastle University researchers has found customers at shops which removed crisps and sweets from near checkouts bought a fifth fewer unhealthy products.
The Newcastle team worked with colleagues at Cambridge and Stirling universities to analyse purchases by 30,000 UK households during the 12 months before and after supermarkets stopped positioning sweets and crisps by tills.
They found 17% fewer small packs of sugary sweets, chocolate and crisps were bought by shoppers.
A “dramatic reduction” in the number of purchases of unhealthy food eaten “on the go” was also revealed in the study, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care Policy Research Programme.
Six of the nine major supermarkets introduced checkout food policies between 2013 and 2017, according to the research, which anonymised the data.
Shoppers made 76% fewer purchases of sugary confectionery, chocolate and crisps from supermarkets with the policies, it was observed.
Dr Jean Adams, from the centre for diet and activity research at the University of Cambridge, who led the study, said: “It may seem obvious that removing unhealthy food options from the checkout would reduce the amount that people buy, but it is evidence such as this that helps build the case for government interventions to improve unhealthy behaviours.
“One such intervention might be to introduce nutritional standards for checkout food as suggested in the Government’s recent childhood obesity plan.
“Such a government-led policy might prove attractive to supermarkets as it would provide a level playing field across the sector.”
The team also analysed data from 7,500 shoppers who bought “on the go” food from supermarkets with and without the policies between 2016 and 2017.
The researchers were unable to prove definitively that the drop in purchases was due to the policies because the study was not a randomised control trial.
Dr Katrine Ejlerskov, one of the study’s authors, said: “Our findings suggest that, by removing sweets and crisps from the checkout, supermarkets can have a positive influence on the types of purchases their shoppers make.
“This would be a relatively simple intervention with the potential to encourage healthier eating.
“Many of these purchases may have been impulse buys, so if the shopper doesn’t pick up a chocolate bar at the till, it may be one less chocolate bar that they consume.”