Healthy Choice: The Effect of Simplified Point-of-Sale Nutritional Information on Consumer Food Choice Behavior

Abstract

Grocery retailers are joining the fray against obesity by offering a wide range of health and wellness programs at the point of sale. However, the success of such programs in promoting healthy choices remains an open question. The authors examine the effectiveness of a growing health and wellness initiative: a simplified nutrition scoring system. They present a conceptual framework that predicts the effect of such a scoring system on shoppers’ food decisions and their sensitivity to price and promotion, as well as the moderating influence of category-level factors. Using a large-scale quasi experiment and panel data across eight product categories for more than 535,000 members of a grocery chain's frequent shopper program, the authors demonstrate that the point-of-sale nutrition scoring system helped consumers make healthier food choices, such that they switched to higher-scoring products in the postrollout period. The results also reveal that shoppers became less price sensitive and more promotion sensitive following the introduction of the food scoring system. The authors discuss implications for research and practice.