‘Store layouts can improve dietary habits,’ says leading researcher

Habits reign supreme. They play so much role in our daily lives than we can ever fathom. And when it comes to buying habits, the influence is even more gasping to the extent that shoppers tend to behave like robots, automatically buying the same stuff, even the same brands, month on month thereby repeating past buying behaviour with little regard to current goals. But what if these habits can be molded for larger good?

A recent research from the University of Southampton, conducted in partnership with the national supermarket chain Iceland Foods Ltd, says that a store’s layout plays a huge role in buying habits and thus overall health of the customers.

Asian Trader got in touch with the study’s lead researcher Dr Christina Vogel, Principal Research Fellow in Public Health Nutrition, who explained in detail how marketing and merchandising techniques, such as where products are placed in food outlets, can influence customers’ choices to a great extent.

“Research indicates that some areas of food stores are particularly effective for promoting product sales, including near the store entrance, aisle-ends and checkouts because they are prominent and easily seen by the customers. What has been less clear is whether these marketing strategies can be used to prompt customers to make healthier food choices,” Vogel said.

The study highlights how when the fresh fruits and vegetable section was expanded and placed near the entrance, store-wide confectionery sales decreased while sale of fruit and vegetables increased.

For the study, the researchers completely removed all unhealthy products from checkouts and aisle-end opposite. The research was different from earlier studies in this regard as those used to focus on only one area of the store like checkouts or used to place healthy products next to unhealthy products to study consumer behaviour. 

“Our findings therefore indicate that making more comprehensive changes to the supermarket layout and limiting the prominent positioning of unhealthy foods can improve customers’ food choices.”

“Furthermore, our results suggest that healthier layouts can encourage more nutritious purchases, most likely because fruit and vegetables are colourful, attractive and indicate freshness when customers first enter the store and because there was little opportunity for impulsive unhealthy food purchases in the checkout area,” she said.

Some people feel that placing at the front of the store does not make sense because they get bruised easily being at the bottom of the shopping cart. Yet such placements are visible in many stores across the world though it is still not a consistent practice among supermarkets and convenience stores in the UK.

There have been claims that placing fresh fruits and vegetables at the entrance or the beginning of the store ensures these items get picked up more by shoppers thereby leading to more sales. There have been claims that it happens because people start their shopping spree by loading up on healthier stuff as there is an element of guilt in shoppers if they ignore the nutritious food items and go straight to a different section.

Vogel’s study seems to have found logical and scientific evidence. The study becomes even more important since it brings hope that an area’s population diet can be made healthier using small tweaks. 

“Our results showed that substantial improvements could be made to the population diet through the adoption of a healthier store layout. Specifically, our research showed that removing confectionery and other unhealthy foods from checkouts and aisle-ends opposite led to approximately 1,500 fewer portions of confectionery being purchased in each store on a weekly basis,” informed Vogel.

“We also showed that almost 10,000 additional portions of fruit and vegetables were purchased in each store on a weekly basis when an expanded fresh fruit and vegetable section was placed near the store entrance rather than at the back of the store. 

“At the household level, there was approximately 5 percent greater fruit and vegetable purchasing among households who shopped at stores with a healthier layout compared to those who shopped at stores with more conventional layouts. 

“The diets of women and their children also improved if they shopped at the healthier stores,” she said.

In a country where one in three children are found to be overweight or clinically obese by the time they leave primary school, Vogel’s study’s findings can come handy. With child obesity, which leads to an increase in more cases of type 2 diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure in children, being deemed by the government as “one of the biggest health challenges this country faces” in the present times, Vogel here seems to hold the key to mould the eating habits of the entire generation.

“Our primary study results indicate that making changes to the layouts of supermarkets can lead to improvements in dietary habits that could make a valuable contribution to addressing poor diets which are drivers of obesity and cardiovascular diseases.”

“More specifically, previous research suggests that improvements in fruit and vegetable consumption can have notable benefits for the prevention of disease, including that each additional portion of fruit and vegetables per day can decrease risk of coronary heart disease by 4-7 per cent and can decrease risk of stroke by 5-11 per cent,” said the researcher.

The idea behind UK’s upcoming regulation on the products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) in the stores and the study resonate well and compliment each other. 

Vogel also agrees that the study’s findings provide some evidence to support the government’s move.

“Our findings provide some evidence to support governments banning the placement of unhealthy foods at checkouts, and potentially other prominent locations in supermarkets (aisle ends and store entrance). Our study findings showed a clear reduction in confectionery sales at the store level but there was no change in confectionery purchasing at the household level,” the researcher said.

“We speculate that the lack of change at the household level occurred because unhealthy food products, like confectionery, are found in several prominent locations around supermarkets. While confectionery was removed from checkouts, seasonal (e.g. Easter, Halloween) and standard confectionery was still positioned at the store entrance, aisle ends and/or in-aisle promotional baskets providing additional purchasing opportunities,” pointed out the researcher.

HFSS regulation is set to come into effect in October next year under which stores above 2,000 square feet in size will not be able to place HFSS products within two metres of a checkout area, within two metres of a designated queueing area, at the end of aisle display and at the entrance of the store. 

The location restriction under this regulation will be applicable on soft drinks, cakes, chocolate confectionery, sugar confectionery, ice cream, morning goods (for example pastries), puddings, sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, yoghurts, sweetened milk-based drinks, sweetened juices, pizza, ready meals and meal centres, including breaded and battered products (for example curries, chicken nuggets, breaded chicken/fish), crisps and savoury snacks, chips and similar potato products.

As per recent claim by IRI, just over a third (35.9 per cent) of UK convenience stores are above 2,000 square feet in size while almost 64.3 per cent of the c-stores are below that size, implying that the forthcoming restrictions aren’t likely to have that much of an impact on the country’s convenience sector. 

However, when it comes to the nation’s overall health, both the upcoming regulation as well as Vogel’s study findings seem to hold ground. 

Vogel believes that government intervention like HFSS can become more effective if l along with the current restrictions, some guidelines are given to stores in terms of placement of fresh fruit and vegetables as well.

“Our results also suggest that government intervention could be enhanced if supermarkets were also required to place a fresh fruit and vegetable section near the store entrance. Although a fresh produce section is placed near the entrance in many large supermarkets this layout is not consistent across all supermarket types,” she said.