̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - supermarkets

Messaging on healthy foods may not prompt healthier purchases: study

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 09:37:31 +0000

People making food-buying choices are often faced with adverts or other descriptions such as ‘low calorie’ (healthy) or ‘tasty’ (less healthy) to influence their decisions, so how effective are health-conscious nudges in moving consumer behaviour toward healthier lifestyles?

A study published in the journal Appetite finds that healthy cues standing alone have, surprisingly, little impact in prompting more healthy buying decisions, while ’hedonic‘ or pleasure-linked cues reduce healthy choices by 3%.

When healthy and non-healthy prompts are presented at the same time, however, the healthy prompts had a protective effect in fully neutralising the non-healthy nudges, perhaps by triggering an ’alarm bell’ to activate control processes.

̽��ֱ��study was based on 1,200 Dutch participants and the sample was selected to be representative of age, gender, and income for the Netherlands.

̽��ֱ��study fills some important gaps in understanding how these cues affect food-buying choices. Previous studies had largely been based on small samples and narrow populations (such as university students), and were based on healthy messages standing alone rather than alongside non-healthy cues.

“ ̽��ֱ��practical impacts of our findings are two-fold: the results cast doubt on the effectiveness of health-goal cues to boost healthy food choices, but they suggest that healthy primes could prevent less healthy food choices by countering hedonic cues through the interaction of the competing messages,” said co-author Lucia Reisch, El-Erian Professor of Behavioural Economics & Policy and Director of the El-Erian Institute of Behavioural Economics & Policy at Cambridge Judge Business School.

̽��ֱ��results were largely unaffected by factors including gender, hunger, dietary restraint and body mass index. ̽��ֱ��study’s methodology mimicked an online supermarket, and presented the competing healthy and hedonic cues through advertising banners for cooking recipes – which contained texts including such phrases as ‘healthy’ or ‘low in calories’ (with images of low-caloric meals such as a quinoa salad), and ‘just delightful’ or ‘heavenly enjoyment’ (with photos of tempting foods high in fat or sugar such as an apple tart). To test healthy or non-healthy messages standing alone, the impact on choice was compared with advertising banners unrelated to food such as tissues.

Participants made 18 choices through the mock supermarket, each time selecting one product out of six alternatives (three healthy and three not) through a mouse click.

Based on previous knowledge of health-goal priming effects, the researchers had hypothesised that health goal cues would result in more healthy food choices.

“Our results do not support this hypothesis,” the study says. “Given the high statistical power of the current study, our observed null effect cast some doubt on the generalisability of the frequent positive findings of health goal priming to the population level.” ̽��ֱ��research did find that the placement of the advertising banners mattered, with more healthy choices resulting when the healthy prime was in the top position rather than a lower position.

“From a public health perspective, the fact that we used very similar stimuli to change behaviour through a health and a hedonic prime but only managed to reduce healthy choices compared to neutral control is relevant,” concludes the study, which uses the term ‘prime’ to describe cues or nudges.

“If it is, all else equal, easier to activate hedonic goals through environmental cues, public health campaigns will be at a technical disadvantage compared to efforts through food advertisement and marketing campaigns. Further research should replicate our findings to test whether the observed differences between health and hedonic goals were linked to our specific experimental design or are universal.”

Reference:
Jan M.Bauer et al. 'Battle of the primes – ̽��ֱ��effect and interplay of health and hedonic primes on food choice.' Appetite (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2022.105956

Originally published on the Cambridge Judge Business School website.

Healthy food cues standing alone don’t prompt healthier buying decisions, but they may counter advertising for sugary and fatty foods, says study co-authored by Cambridge researchers.

Franki Chamaki via Unsplash

Supermarket aisle

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Removing sweets and crisps from supermarket checkouts linked to dramatic fall in unhealthy snack purchases

cjb250 — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 19:00:52 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, found that 76% fewer purchases of sugary confectionery, chocolate and potato crisps were bought and eaten ‘on-the-go’ from supermarkets with checkout food policies compared to those without. In addition, 17% fewer small packages of these items were bought and taken home from supermarkets immediately after introducing a checkout food policy.

Large supermarket chains such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s have captured the majority of the grocery market and play a major role in shaping food preferences and purchasing behaviour. Retail practices such as product displays, positioning, promotions and pricing can all influence consumers’ choices in stores.

Supermarket checkouts provide a unique location for prompting purchases as all customers have to pass through them to pay and may spend considerable time in queues; however, the majority of food at supermarket checkouts could be considered unhealthy. Over the last decade, many UK supermarket groups have made voluntary commitments to remove or limit unhealthy foods at the tills or to provide healthier options.

“Many snacks picked up at the checkout may be unplanned, impulse buys – and the options tend to be confectionery, chocolate or crisps,” says Dr Jean Adams from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “Several supermarkets have now introduced policies to remove these items from their checkouts, and we wanted to know if this had any impact on people’s purchasing choices.”

To examine the effect that the introduction of checkout food policies in major supermarket chains has had on shoppers’ purchasing habits, Dr Adams led a team of researchers at the universities of Cambridge, Stirling and Newcastle who analysed data from the Kantar Worldpanel’s Consumer panel for food, beverages and household products. Six out of the nine major supermarkets introduced checkout food policies between 2013 and 2017. ( ̽��ֱ��researchers anonymised the information to avoid ‘naming and shaming’ companies.)

Firstly, the team looked at how purchases of less healthy common checkout foods brought home changed following the implementation of checkout policies. They used data from over 30,000 UK households from 12 months before to 12 months after implementation.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that implementation of a checkout food policy was associated with an immediate 17% reduction in purchases. After a year, shoppers were still purchasing over 15% fewer of the items compared to when no policy was in place.

Next, they looked at data from 7,500 shoppers who recorded food bought and eaten ‘on-the-go’ during 2016-17 from supermarkets with and without checkout food policies. On-the-go purchases are often impulsive and can be the result of children pestering their parents. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that shoppers made 76% fewer annual purchases of less healthy common checkout foods from supermarkets with checkout food policies compared to those without.

As the study was not a randomised control trial, it was not possible to say definitely that the changes in purchasing behaviour were due to the checkout food policies. Stores that chose to have checkout food policies may have been different from those that did not. Or shoppers may have changed to purchasing larger packages from the same stores, or similar products from stores that aren’t supermarkets.

“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,” says Dr Katrine Ejlerskov, the study’s first author. “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.”

“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,” adds Dr Adams.

“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.”

̽��ֱ��work was undertaken by the authors as part of the Public Health Research Consortium. ̽��ֱ��Public Health Research Consortium is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care Policy Research Programme.

Reference
Ejlerskov, KT et al. Supermarket policies on less healthy food at checkouts: natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series analyses of purchases. PLOS Medicine; 18 Dec 2018; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002712

Policies aimed at removing sweets and crisps from checkouts could lead to a dramatic reduction in the amount of unhealthy food purchased to eat ‘on-the-go’ and a significant reduction in that purchased to take home, suggests new research led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

It is evidence such as this that helps build the case for government interventions to improve unhealthy behaviours

Jean Adams

paulbr75 (Pixabay)

Shopping carts

Researcher Profile: Dr Jean Adams

“Most people have a vague idea about what eating better involves – more fruit and veg, less fat and sugar – and they also often have an aspiration to eat better,” says Dr Jean Adams. “But they don’t always manage to put this aspiration into practice.”

Jean’s research group in the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) asks why this is the case – and what can be done about it. “We’re particularly interested in how we can provide environments that make it easier for everyone to eat better. This might involve making healthier foods more available, cheaper, attractive, or easier to prepare.”

Jean began her career studying medicine at Newcastle ̽��ֱ��, but admits she “never really enjoyed it”. But between her second and third year at medical school, she did a research year and realised this was where her passion lay. She went on to study for a PhD in public health and since then her career has involved public health research, rather than clinical medicine.

“I do a lot of talking and listening to people working in local and national government to understand what sorts of opportunities they feel are coming up and what research they would find helpful. In Cambridge we then try and focus on what the most rigorous and useful research we could do would be.”

Jean hopes that her research will lead to more people finding it easier to eat better. “Poor diet accounts for as much death and disease in the UK as tobacco smoking, so we are trying to address a major problem,” she says.

While she finds her work interesting and rewarding, she says research can be more prosaic than it is sometimes painted. “I have never had a Eureka moment and no-one’s ever slapped a sheaf of papers on my desk that explains everything! In my experience, research is more about grinding things out with a lot of refining and polishing leading to incremental accumulation of knowledge.”

Nor is it particularly glamorous: “ ̽��ֱ��CEDAR offices are in a slightly dingy corner deep in the heart of Addenbrooke’s Hospital. We have a small meeting room with a big white board. Sometimes I think that whiteboard has been the key vehicle for almost all of the great research CEDAR has produced!”

But fortunately, it can be both enjoyable and exhilarating. “My favourite meetings are the ones where we talk about ideas and share our brain power to arrive at new insights. I particularly enjoy when someone makes me see an old problem in a new way, or helps me crystallise some vague ideas that have been bubbling in my head for a while.

“We also try not to take ourselves too seriously and have a lot of fun along the way.”

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Flexible hours 'controlled by management' cause stress and damage home lives of low-paid workers

fpjl2 — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 09:37:31 +0000

A researcher who embedded himself in several London branches of one of the UK's largest supermarkets found that management used a combination of 'flexed-time' contracts and overtime to control worker shifts to meet times of anticipated demand, while ensuring costs are kept to a minimum.

Workers at the supermarket chain were frequently expected to extend or change shifts with little or no notice, often to the detriment of their home and family lives – causing the majority of workers interviewed to feel negatively about their jobs.

Low wages and lack of guaranteed hours, combined with convoluted contractual terms, weak union presence, and pressure from managers that at times bordered on coercion ("...there are plenty of people out there who need jobs") meant that many felt they had no choice but to work when ordered, despite the impact on childcare, work-life balance and, in some cases, health - both physical and mental.

Dr Alex Wood, who conducted the research while at Cambridge's Department of Sociology, has chosen not to name the retailer in the new study, published today in the journal Human Relations. Having spoken with union representatives from across the retail sector, however, Wood believes the practises he encountered are now endemic across major supermarkets in the UK.

̽��ֱ��Government's website describes flexible working as something that "suits an employee's needs". However, Wood says there is a critical distinction – one overlooked by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) – between workers controlling their own schedules, and management imposing control.

"Control over flexible working enables a better work-life balance. However, such control is the privilege of high-end workers. When low-paid, vulnerable workers experience flexible working time, it is at the whim of managers who alter schedules in order to maximise profits, with little consideration for the work-life balance of employees," said Wood.

̽��ֱ��practice of low core-hour contracts that can be 'flexed up' are most notoriously embodied in zero-hour contracts – recently reported to affect over 800,000 British workers. Last year, then DWP Minister Iain Duncan Smith held up a survey claiming to show "most" workers on such contracts find them to be beneficial.

Wood says this is an example of conflating low-end, hourly-paid workers who have schedules dictated by management - those in supermarkets, for example - with highly paid professionals such as consultants who control their own hours of work. While all are technically on zero-hours contracts, their experiences of work are dramatically different.

"It is misleading to claim that flexibility provided by zero-hour contracts is beneficial for 'most' workers' work-life balance, and it is simply implausible to suggest this is the case for low-paid, vulnerable workers who by definition lack the power to control their working time," said Wood, who contributed evidence to the coalition government's zero-hours policy review in 2014.

For the study, Wood conducted interviews with a number of workers from across four of the UK retailer's stores, ranging from check-out operators to online delivery drivers, as well as interviewing union reps and officials. He also conducted two months of "participatory observation": working as a shelf stacker in one of the larger supermarket stores.

His findings have led Wood to conclude that the problem of precarious contracts goes far beyond just zero-hours, encompassing most management-controlled flexible contracts.

At the time of the research, the UK retailer had a policy of new stores reserving 20% of all payroll costs for short-term changes in shifts, which requires around 45% of all staff to be on flexible contracts, says Wood, although interviews with union representatives indicated this was likely higher.

While contracted for as little as 7.5 core hours, all flexible workers had to provide 48 hours of availability per week at the point of application – with greater availability increasing the chances of being hired.

Officially, 'flexed' hours were not to exceed 60% of workers' core hours. However, despite being contracted for a weekly average of just nine core hours, Wood found that standard flexible workers were working an average of 36 hour weeks.

Management used combinations of 'overtime' – additional hours that are voluntary but can be offered on-the-spot – with 'flexed time' – additional hours that are compulsory but require 24 hours' notice – to ensure staffing levels could be manipulated at short notice to meet expected demand.

Both overtime and flexed time were paid at standard rates, keeping payroll costs down, and Wood found distinctions between the two were frequently blurred - disregarding what little contractual protection existed.

"In reality, the nature of low pay and low hours contracts means these workers can't afford to turn down hours," said Wood.

"Whether zero core hours, or seven, or nine - none provide enough to live on. This precarious situation of not having enough hours to make ends meet is heightened by a perception that refusal to work additional hours meant they would not be offered them again in future, something most workers simply couldn't afford."

̽��ֱ��stress caused by management-controlled flexed time of low hour contracts, and the impact on home and family lives, were frequently raised by the workers that Wood spoke to.

One worker provided what Wood describes as a "characteristic experience". Sara co-habited with her partner Paul, also employed at the UK retailer. "[W]e've set aside Saturday as a day to do something – me, Paul and my son – as a family... She [Sara's manager] now wants me to work Saturdays... it's all up in the air."

Colin, another worker, described the impact of dramatic schedule alterations to his wellbeing: "I had to change hours, or accept another position, or try another store... I felt really sick, it just hit me, it hit all of us..."

Asim, a union rep, made it clear that management bullying occurred: "People have been told, wrongly, that they can be sacked for it if they don't change their hours."

Under Duncan-Smith, the UK government legislated to ban 'exclusive' zero-hours contracts – those that have no guaranteed hours but restrict workers from getting another job – but Wood says this is simply a straw man, and new DWP Minister Stephen Crabb must go much further.

'It's imperative that Stephen Crabb breaks from his predecessor and recognises the damage which wider manager-controlled flexible scheduling practices, including all zero hours contracts, do to work-life balance," Wood said.

"Policies are needed which strengthen low-end workers' voice. When alterations to schedules are made solely by managers and driven by cost containment, flexibility is only beneficial for the employer not the employees."

Researcher Alex Wood calls on new DWP Minister Stephen Crabb to acknowledge distinction between flexible scheduling controlled by managers to maximise profit, damaging lives of the low-paid in the process, and high-end professionals who set their own schedules – an issue he says was publicly fudged by Ian Duncan-Smith to justify zero-hour contracts.

I had to change hours, or accept another position, or try another store... I felt really sick, it just hit me, it hit all of us...

Colin, worker at the unnamed supermarket

Tesco PLC

Tesco Linwood

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Supermarket promotions boost sales of less healthy foods more than healthier foods

cjb250 — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 18:00:00 +0000

Price promotions are commonly used in stores to boost sales through price reductions and stimulate impulsive purchases by increasing items’ prominence through tags and positioning. However, there is growing concern that such promotional activities by the food industry may contribute to poor dietary choices and might lure consumers away from healthier, higher priced options.

“There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence, but very little empirical evidence, about the impact of price promotions on people’s diets,” explains Professor Theresa Marteau, Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “In this study, we examined whether less healthy foods are more likely to be promoted than healthier foods and how consumers respond to price promotions.”

A team of UK researchers, funded by the Department of Health, studied detailed data on purchase records of all foods and beverages by 27,000 households in the UK. Over 11,000 purchased products from 135 food and drink categories were assigned healthiness scores – following UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) criteria – based on the FSA nutrient profiling model.

Published today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the results show - perhaps surprisingly - that on the whole less healthy items were no more frequently promoted than healthier ones. However, after accounting for price, price discount, and brand characteristics, the magnitude of the sales increase was larger in less healthy than in healthier food categories. A 10% increase in the frequency of promotions led to a 35% sales increase for less healthy foods and a just under 20% sales increase for healthier foods. ̽��ֱ��researchers believe this may be because products from less healthy food categories are often non-perishable, while those from healthier food categories – in particular fruit and vegetables – are perishable: stockpiling during promotion may therefore be more likely to happen in less healthy food categories.

̽��ֱ��study also found that households of a higher socioeconomic status tended to respond to price promotions more than those from disadvantaged backgrounds, for both healthier and less healthy foods. ̽��ֱ��researchers suggest a number of reasons, including the fact that making the most of promotions may involve stockpiling items while they are on offer, requiring financial resources and more space to store products.

“It seems to be a widely held idea that supermarkets offer promotions on less healthy foods more often than promotions on healthier foods, but we did not find this to be the case, except within a minority of food categories,” says Dr Ryota Nakamura from the Centre for Health Economics at the ̽��ֱ�� of York, who carried out the research whilst at the ̽��ֱ�� of East Anglia. “Yet, because price promotions lead to greater sales boosts when applied to less healthy foods, our results suggest that restricting price promotions on less healthy foods has the potential to make a difference to people’s eating habits and encourage healthier, more nutritious diets.”

Reference
Nakamura, R et al. Price promotions on healthier vs. less healthy foods: a hierarchical regression analysis of the impact on sales and social patterning of responses to promotions in Great Britain. AJCN; 11 Feb 2015

Supermarket price promotions are more likely to lead to an increase in sales of less healthy foods than healthier choices in supermarkets, according to a study published today. However, the study of shopping patterns amongst almost 27,000 UK households found that supermarkets were no more likely to promote less healthy over healthier foods.

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence, but very little empirical evidence, about the impact of price promotions on people’s diets

Theresa Marteau

Anthony Albright

Produce Department (cropped)

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Zero-hours contracts are ‘tip of the iceberg’ of damaging shift work, say researchers

fpjl2 — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 00:12:03 +0000

New research on two supermarket chains, one UK and one US, shows that a range of flexible employment practices – extending far beyond just zero-hours contracts – cause widespread anxiety, stress and ‘depressed mental states’ in workers as a result of financial and social uncertainty, and can block worker access to education as well as much-needed additional income.

̽��ֱ��findings are included in a report submitted to the government consultation on zero-hours contracts at the request of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

̽��ֱ��report’s authors, from the ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Sociology, say the UK government should widen the net in reviewing damaging employment practices, arguing that employees be granted the right to make statutory claims to work additional core hours and have a say in the scheduling of their hours.

“Zero-hours contracts are the tip of the iceberg; just one small manifestation of this much wider problem in our workplaces,” said Dr Brendan Burchell, Head of Department and co-author on the report, compiled with his PhD candidate Alex Wood.

“Workplace flexibility is thought of as helping employees, but it has become completely subverted across much of the service sector to suit the employer – and huge numbers of workers are suffering as a consequence.

“So-called ‘flexi-contracts’, whether that’s zero, eight or ten hours – none of which can provide a living – allow low-level management unaccountable power to dictate workers’ hours and consequent income to a damaging extent that is open to incompetency and abuse.”

̽��ֱ��research – based on interviews with UK and US supermarket workers and union officials, as well as months of shop-floor observation – found that strategies such as extreme part-time contracts, key-time contracts and frequent labour matching, as well as ‘at will’ zero-hours employment, are all experienced as a form of job insecurity that causes untold stress for thousands of employees and their families.

Extreme part-time contracts guarantee such low hours of work that many workers must work overtime as a matter of necessity. Labour matching involves management rearranging shifts to meet predicted future shopping demand.

With key-time contracts, workers are given limited core hours and asked to state additional times they can work. Managers can demand they work any hours falling during these times with just 24 hours’ notice.

Previously, these contracts were reserved for roles where matching demand was most critical – such as fulfilling online orders. ̽��ֱ��UK supermarket’s policy is now that all new stores aim for 45 per cent of staff to be on ‘key-time’.

As one UK worker interviewed by the researchers put it: “I’ve got two kids and a mortgage and I’m gonna be out of a job because I can’t do these hours”. Another said: “They put a lot of stress on people… I used to be in tears”.

It’s not just financial insecurities, psychological well-being and blocks to additional earning that impact workers, say researchers. These contracts also reduce access to education and training programmes, and mean that those with children and other caring responsibilities are often forced to put the burden on others with very little notice. Burchell describes the problem as a “combination of individual and social impact”.

In the report, the authors note that even informal employee input into work schedules has been shown to significantly reduce negative consequences of unpredictable working hours. They write that there is a need for the policy debate surrounding zero-hours contracts to be better informed by evidence.

Previous research cited by the government doesn’t make the important distinction between high and low wage workers on zero-hours contracts, say the researchers. For example, many consultants work on a zero hour basis.

“It is the invidious way that vulnerable people at the low end of the labour market – such as in supermarket retail – are forced to live their lives that requires scrutiny,” said Wood

“High unemployment and tough economic times, combined with ever-increasing flexible working practices that favour corporations, is creating a culture of servitude – trapping people in vicious cycles of instability, stress and a struggle to make ends meet.

“ ̽��ֱ��policies the government is looking at completely misunderstand the nature and scale of the problem.”

While California is an ‘At Will Employment’ State, meaning that all the US supermarket workers are on de-facto zero-hours contracts, the UK supermarket does not make use of zero-hours contracts. However, the researchers say that through a combination of extreme part-time and key-time contracts it achieves similar worker flexibility.

They found that all these employment strategies contribute to employee anxieties as workers try to juggle these demands with social and family responsibilities – as well as the enduring financial worry if next week’s hours drop.

During fieldwork, Wood interviewed a number of current UK and US employees on flexi-contracts.

One UK worker said: “Nobody can possibly survive on three and a half hours’ pay a week. And then it boils down to you’ve got your three and a half hours plus you’ve got flexed-time which they will give you if they need you.

“But once your face doesn’t fit you don’t get any more hours and you might as well stay on the dole really.”

Burchell adds that some employers use these contracts because they have genuinely unpredictable staffing needs – such as salad production that is weather dependent. But in the case of supermarkets, employers are using flexi-contracts because they are convenient for management, and the impact on the lives of workers isn’t being considered.

“There is plenty of guidance for managers about good practice for health and safety, for example, but almost nothing about scheduling worker hours – and there could and should be,” he said.

“Much of the misery caused is probably through incompetent scheduling, and management not realising the way they are controlling workers’ lives. If employees have a right to request more predictable hours enshrined in legislation that the management would have to justify refusing, it would at least help redress the balance slightly.”

New report shows that zero-hours contracts are only one of a wide number of flexible employment practices that are abused by managers - leading to financial insecurity, anxiety and stress in the workforce. Researchers say the Government consultation was too narrow and call for legislation requiring employers to defend scheduling decisions.

So-called ‘flexi-contracts’, whether that’s zero, eight or ten hours – none of which can provide a living – allow low-level management unaccountable power to dictate workers’ hours

Brendan Burchell

Markus Schopke

̽��ֱ��consumer society is happy (for a while)

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