Dataset Information

Are food and drink available in online and physical supermarkets the same? A comparison of product availability, price, price promotions and nutritional information.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Online supermarkets are increasingly used both by consumers and as a source of data on the food environment. We compared product availability, nutritional information, front-of-pack (FOP) labelling, price and price promotions for food and drink products between physical and online supermarkets.

Design

For physical stores, we collected data on price, price promotions, FOP nutrition labels and nutrition information from a random sample of food and drinks from six UK supermarkets. For online stores, we used foodDB, a research-ready dataset of over 14 million observations of food and drink products available in online supermarkets.

Setting

Six large supermarket stores located near Oxford, UK.

Participants

General sample with 295 food and drink products, plus boost samples for both fruit and vegetables, and alcohol.

Results

In the general sample, 85 % (95 % CI 80, 90 %) of products found in physical stores could be matched with an online product. Nutritional information found in the two settings was almost identical, for example, concordance correlation coefficient for energy = 0·995 (95 % CI 0·993, 0·996). The presence of FOP labelling and price promotions differed between the two settings (Cohen's kappa = 0·56 (95 % CI 0·45, 0·66) and 0·40 (95 % CI 0·26, 0·55), respectively). Prices were similar between online and physical supermarkets (concordance correlation coefficient > 0·9 for all samples).

Conclusions

Product availability, nutritional information and prices sourced online for these six retailers are good proxies of those found in physical stores. Price promotions and FOP labelling vary between the two settings. Further research should investigate whether this could impact on health inequalities.

SUBMITTER: Bhatnagar P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7610557 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Increasing the availability of healthier food increases its selection and consumption. However, there is an absence of evidence related to alcohol. This study aimed to estimate the impact of increasing the absolute and relative availability of non-alcoholic compared to alcoholic drinks on selection. We also assessed whether effects were modified by cognitive resource. METHODS:UK adult weekly alcohol consumers (n?=?808) were recruited to an online experiment with a hypothetical drink selection task. Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions, in a 4 (availability) ×?2 (cognitive resource) factorial design. The four availability conditions were: i. Reference 1 (two non-alcoholic, two alcoholic drinks); ii. Reference 2 (four non-alcoholic, four alcoholic drinks); iii. Increased non-alcoholic drinks (six non-alcoholic, two alcoholic drinks); iv. Increased alcoholic drinks (two non-alcoholic, six alcoholic drinks). The two cognitive resource conditions were: a. Low (high time pressure); b. High (low time pressure). Logistic regression was used to assess selection of a non-alcoholic drink. RESULTS:49% of participants selected a non-alcoholic drink in the Increased non-alcoholic drinks condition, compared to 36% in Reference 1, 39% in Reference 2, and 26% in the Increased alcoholic drinks condition. Non-alcoholic drink selection was similar between Reference 1 and 2 when the total number of drinks increased (absolute availability) but the proportion of non-alcoholic compared to alcoholic drinks (relative availability) was unchanged (OR?=?1.15, 95% CI 0.77, 1.73). In contrast, the odds of selecting a non-alcoholic drink were 71% higher when both absolute and relative availability of non-alcoholic compared to alcoholic drinks was increased from Reference 1 to the Increased non-alcoholic drinks condition (OR: 1.71, 95% CI 1.15, 2.54), and 48% higher when increased from Reference 2 to the Increased non-alcoholic drinks condition (OR: 1.48, 95% CI 0.99, 2.19). There was no evidence of an effect of cognitive resource. CONCLUSIONS:Greater availability of non-alcoholic drinks, compared to alcoholic drinks, increased their online selection, an effect that may be larger when changing their relative availability, i.e., increasing the proportion of non-alcoholic drinks. Naturalistic studies are needed to determine the impact of availability interventions on reducing alcohol purchasing and consumption.