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other·public health, nutrition, epidemiology, research methods, clinical trial·PMC10280909

Real-life experiments in supermarkets to encourage healthy dietary-related behaviours: opportunities, challenges and lessons learned

The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity · 10 authors, 7 centres

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TL;DR

The central result is the distillation of six key recommendations for establishing and sustaining effective research partnerships with commercial supermarket chains.

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The projects included RCTs and quasi-experimental studies testing various in-store interventions such as price reductions, product placement, and peer education. The authors identified shared challenges and opportunities, including building trust with retailers, securing robust data, and ensuring scientific independence. The synthesis resulted in six recommendations for conducting high-quality public health research in this commercial setting. Limitations include that the findings may reflect experiences unique to the specific studies and high-income country contexts described.

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other

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public health

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ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10280909

Real-life experiments in supermarkets to encourage healthy dietary-related behaviours: opportunities, challenges and lessons learned

The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

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ABSTRACT

Background Supermarkets are the primary source of food for many people yet their full potential as a setting to encourage healthy dietary-related behaviours remains underutilised. Sharing the experiences from research groups who have worked with supermarket chains to evaluate strategies that promote healthy eating could improve the efficiency of building such relationships and enhance the design quality of future research studies. Methods A collective case study approach was used to synthesise experiences of engaging and sustaining research collaborations with national supermarket chains to test the effectiveness of health-focused in-store interventions. The collective narrative covers studies conducted in three high-income countries: Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Results We have distilled our experiences and lessons learned into six recommendations for conducting high quality public health research with commercial supermarket chains. These include: (i) using personal contacts, knowledge of supermarket activities and engaging executive management to establish a partnership and allowing time to build trust; (ii) using scientifically robust study designs with appropriate sample size calculations; (iii) formalising data exchange arrangements and allocating adequate resource for data extraction and re-categorisation; (iv) assessing effects at individual/households level where possible; (v) designing a mixed-methods process evaluation to measure intervention fidelity, dose and unintended consequences; and (vi) ensuring scientific independence through formal contract agreements. Conclusions Our collective experiences of working in non-financial partnerships with national supermarket chains could be useful for other research groups looking to develop and implement supermarket studies in an efficient manner. Further evidence from real-life supermarket interventions is necessary to identify sustainable strategies that can improve population diet and maintain necessary commercial outcomes.

CITATION EXPORT

Christina Vogel, Coosje Dijkstra, Marlijn Huitink et al.. Real-life experiments in supermarkets to encourage healthy dietary-related behaviours: opportunities, challenges and lessons learned. The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-023-01448-8

AUTHORS

10 · 7 CENTRES

Christina Vogel, Coosje Dijkstra, Marlijn Huitink, Preeti Dhuria, Maartje P Poelman, Joreintje D Mackenbach, Sarah Crozier, Jacob Seidell, Janis Baird, Kylie Ball

1grid.4464.20000 0001 2161 2573Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London, Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB UK
2grid.5491.90000 0004 1936 9297Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital Tremona Road, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK
3grid.430506.40000 0004 0465 4079National Institute for Health Research Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK
4grid.16872.3a0000 0004 0435 165XDepartment of Health Sciences, Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam Public Health research institute, De Boelelaan 1085, Amsterdam, 1081 HV the Netherlands
5grid.4818.50000 0001 0791 5666Chair group Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles, Wageningen University & Research, P.O. Box 8130, Wageningen, 6700 EW The Netherlands
6grid.16872.3a0000 0004 0435 165XDepartment of Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc, Amsterdam Public Health research institute, De Boelelaan 1089a, 1081HV, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
7grid.1021.20000 0001 0526 7079Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research, School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, 1 Gheringhap Street, Geelong, VIC 3220 Australia