Changes in supermarket sales during and after a staged health promotion campaign

Abstract

To test the feasibility of the use of supermarket sales data in evaluating a local point of purchase intervention and to assess the impact of the intervention six and 12 months later. Staged point of purchase intervention pilot study followed by a longitudinal observational study. The study was carried out in one supermarket in Mikkeli, Finland. Foods were classified as healthier or reference products based on their labelled content of salt and saturated fat. The sales of packaged foods containing reduced amounts of salt and/or saturated fat were promoted with a stepwise increasing intervention culminating in a``heart week''. In addition all unplanned promotional activities during the intervention were surveyed. Information on the sales of both the promoted products and reference products was collected daily from the supermarket's computer system. Direct and proportional sales of both single products and whole food groups were analysed during the intervention and at follow-up. In addition the supermarket environment and the supermarket's advertising in the local newspaper were checked. Short-term variations in the sales could be seen related to the promotion activities. During the heart week the sales of actively promoted healthier products increased by 37-49 per cent. Variations in the sales of reference products could also be seen; the proportional sales of some healthier products declined significantly when the reference products were actively promoted. The supermarket environment was still affected by the intervention at both follow-ups. The mean percentage salt content of the weekly sales had declined in all food groups and the mean percentage fat content had either declined or remained unchanged. Computerised sales data provide a useful and rapid means of evaluating supermarket based interventions. The intervention had an impact on the supermarket environment which was visible at follow-up.

Point-of-Purchase Nutrition Information Influences Food-Purchasing Behaviors of College Students: A Pilot Study

“…Though not statistically significant (P=.082), the intervention resulted in a 3.6% increase in the percentage of sales from tagged items. This research supports previously published POP nutrition information strategies that successfully impacted food-purchasing behaviors in grocery stores (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). Three of these studies were conducted in large urban grocery stores (17,20,22).…”

“…Studies examining the effect of POP information on food purchasing behaviors in grocery stores, restaurants, universities, and the workplace have recently been reviewed (11,13). In grocery stores, of the ten interventions that focused primarily on information strategies (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23), six of the studies showed increased sales for, at most, 50% of the targeted food items (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22).…”

Systematic review: a systems innovation perspective on barriers and facilitators for the implementation of healthy food-store interventions

“…Community relations seemed most relevant for single stores. Interventionists frequently perceived strong community relationships as potential motivators for retailers [23, 27, 31, 40], or a way to gather community support [41, 46]. In two cases, retailers perceived robberies as a threat to their own and interventionists’ safety [21, 40]; turning the community into a barrier.…”

“…Legislation was discussed little. In one study, the interventionists perceived governmental legislation as a potential facilitator for the implementation of interventions [46].…”

“…Multiple studies illustrate the value of aligning the intervention with the needs of retailers [37, 47] or their customers [24, 37, 41, 45, 47]. In cases where the intervention did not fit with the practices, facilities [45], target group [28, 46, 47], or personalities [42, 47] of retail organisations, this was considered a barrier.…”