Abstract
To determine if voluntary policies on supermarket checkout foods are associated with a difference in the healthfulness of foods displayed at, or near, supermarket checkout areas. Cross-sectional survey of foods at, or near, supermarket checkouts categorised as less healthy or not according to the Food Standards Agency's Nutrient Profiling Model. One city in Eastern England (population about 125 000). All stores in nine supermarket groups open for business in June-July 2017 in the study city. Supermarket checkout food policies were categorised as clear and consistent, vague or inconsistent, or none. In thirty-three stores, 11 434 checkout food exposures were recorded, of which 8010 (70·1 %) were less healthy; and 2558 foods in areas near checkouts, of which 1769 (69·2 %) were less healthy. After adjusting for a marker of store size, the odds of a checkout food exposure being 'less healthy' was lower in stores with vague or inconsistent checkout policies (OR=0·63; 95 % CI 0·49, 0·80) and in stores with clear and consistent checkout policies (OR=0·33; 95 % CI 0·24, 0·45), compared with no policy. There was no difference in the odds of foods near, but not at, checkouts being less healthy according to checkout food policy. Supermarket checkout food policies were associated with lower odds of checkout foods but not foods near, but not at, checkouts being less healthy. Further research is required to explore impacts on purchasing and consumption.
Highlights
Presence and nature of supermarket checkout food policies We used data collected in May–September 2017 to determine the presence and nature of supermarket checkout food policies[20]
After adjusting for a marker of store size, we found that the proportion of checkout food exposures that were ‘less healthy’ was lowest in stores with clear and consistent checkout food policies, intermediate in stores with vague or inconsistent policies and highest in stores with no policy
There was no difference in the proportion of less healthy foods near, but not at, checkouts according to checkout food policy
Summary
We conducted a cross-sectional survey in June–July 2017 of foods at, or near, supermarket checkouts in one city in Eastern England with a population of about 125 000. Supermarket and store selection We included all stores open for business in June–July 2017 located within the administrative boundaries of the study city and that belonged to one of the nine supermarket groups that together account for more than 90 % of the UK grocery market[31]. Two of the nine supermarket groups did not have stores in the study city. As our intention was to study the associations between checkout food policies and foods displayed, rather than ‘name and shame’ particular supermarket groups, we have chosen not to identify specific supermarket groups in the ‘Results’ section of the present paper
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