The effect that retail displays and the overall mapping out of stores can have on shopping patterns of consumers has been well-established and often employed dependent on a retail location’s particular needs – a recent study concluded that placement strategies for healthy and unhealthy foods could also affect whether consumers on the whole make healthy food choices.
 
The study, which was led by Dr. Christina Vogel, principal research fellow in Public Health Nutrition, and Janis Baird, professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Southampton, was conducted in partnership with the national supermarket chain Iceland Foods Ltd. The trail took place in a selection of stores throughout England, where researchers monitored food sales as well as the specific purchasing and dietary patterns of a sample of regular customers. The customers monitored were all women between the ages of 18 and 45.
 
“In an effort to curb the influence of unhealthy marketing tactics on population diet, the UK government announced their intention to ban the use of prominent placement strategies for unhealthy food and drink products in supermarkets and other outlets,” the authors of the study noted. “This proposal forms part of the national strategy to address childhood obesity. There is a pressing need for further evidence from local, well-designed intervention studies aimed at testing the effect, and cost impact, of healthier product placement strategies. Such evidence could assist UK policy makers appropriately frame the proposed ban, as well as help guide future government intervention to improve diet across the world.”
 
In the study, the change of removing confectionary and other unhealthy products from checkouts and at the end of nearby aisles, and placing fruits and vegetables near store entrances, prompted customers to make healthier food purchases. In place of the end-of-aisle and near-checkout confectionary items, the researchers placed water and non-food items instead. Previous studies have had limited success with simply testing the effect of “healthier checkouts,” which placed healthier snack items alongside or at alternate checkouts to unhealthy snacks.
 
However, in the present study, “a healthier store layout could lead to nearly 10,000 extra portions of fruit and vegetables and approximately 1,500 fewer portions of confectionary being sold on a weekly basis in each store,” Vogel said.
 
“We have been pleased to support this long-term study and the evaluation of how product placement in supermarkets can affect the diets of our customers,” Matt Downes, head of format development at Iceland, said. “We know that childhood obesity is a growing issue and the retail industry has its part to play in tackling this. We hope that the outcomes of the study provide insights for the wider retail industry and policy makers about the impact of store merchandising on purchasing decisions.”

The UK has been taking numerous legislative actions against the advertising of junk foods recently, which includes a tentative ban on televised ads after 9 p.m. for foods with a high fat, sugar, and salt content.
 
“These results provide novel evidence to suggest that the intended UK government ban on prominent placement of unhealthy foods across retail outlets could be beneficial for population diet, and that effects may be further enhanced if requirements for a produce section near supermarket entrances were incorporated into the regulation.”