Retailer-Led Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Price Increase Reduces Purchases in a Hospital Convenience Store in Melbourne, Australia: A Mixed Methods Evaluation

Abstract

A 20% sugar-sweetened beverage price increase was associated with a reduction in their purchases and an increase in purchases of healthier alternatives. Community retail settings present a bottom-up approach to improving consumer beverage choices.

Change in drink purchases in 16 Australian recreation centres following a sugar-sweetened beverage reduction initiative: an observational study

“…Furthermore, no studies examined characteristics associated with outcomes of interest including business-related ones. The latter is important given that fear of negative financial outcomes and customer dissatisfaction is a frequently voiced concern by retail storeowners and managers 18–20. A further study using interrupted time series analysis to assess the impact of pricing changes to SSBs in UK recreation centres21 offers methodological insights that could be applied to the evalution of availability-based policies.…”

Investigating business outcomes of healthy food retail strategies: A systematic scoping review

“…The conceptual framework for this review can be found in Appendix S1. The traditionally acknowledged “mechanism” of effect from a change in food environment to a change in purchasing and ultimately health outcomes is influenced by numerous “contextual factors.” For example, in a traditional linear pathway of effect, an increase in price of sugar‐sweetened beverages (SSBs) in a convenience store may reduce purchases of SSBs and increase purchases of bottled water, which may in turn lead to reduced customer SSB consumption and reduced community risk of obesity. Integrating business outcomes into the effect path, customer store satisfaction may decrease with SSB price increases, which may reduce store patronage and in turn reduce customer purchases of SSBs and healthy alternatives at the convenience store.…”

Environmental Interventions to Reduce the Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: Abridged Cochrane Systematic Review

“…For 6 intervention types, we found moderate-certainty evidence for consistent associations with decreases in direct or indirect measures of SSB consumption: traffic light labelling [26,27]; price increases on SSB [28][29][30]; in-store promotion of healthier beverages in supermarkets [31]; food benefit programs with incentives for purchasing fruits and vegetables and restrictions on SSB purchases [32][33][34]; community campaigns focused on SSB [35]; and interventions improving the availability of healthier beverages in the home environment [3,4,[36][37][38][39].…”

“…We conducted a meta-analysis for 3 studies reporting on price increases of SSB [28][29][30]. Our pooled effect estimate is that SSB sales decreased by -19% (95% CI -33 to -6) at 4-12 months, with relevant subgroup differences according to the magnitude of the price increase (see online suppl.…”

“…With the observed benefits outweighing the observed harms, we suggest that those interventions showing consistent associations with reduced SSB consumption may be considered as part of a wider set of measures to improve population-level nutrition and associated health outcomes. Based on the findings of this review, this applies to the following approaches: interpretative nutrition labelling, including traffic light [26,27] and nutritional rating score labelling [40,41]; interventions limiting the availability of SSB in schools [42][43][44][45]; price increases on SSB [28][29][30][42][43][44][45]; healthier default beverages in children's menus in chain restaurants [46]; in-store promotion of healthier beverages in supermarkets [31]; government food benefit programs with incentives to purchase fruits and vegetables and restrictions on purchasing SSB [32][33][34]; multi-component community campaigns focused on SSB [35]; and interventions improving access to low-calorie beverages in the home environment of participants with overweight and obesity and a high baseline consumption of SSB [3,4,[36][37][38][39]. Further approaches to reduce the consumption of SSB exist, and may be effective, but the evidence in this review does not allow for clear conclusions regarding their effects.…”