What is known about consumer nutrition environments in Australia? A scoping review of the literature

Abstract

SummaryObjectiveFood environments can influence food selection and hold the potential to reduce obesity, non‐communicable diseases and their inequalities. ‘Consumer nutrition environments’ describe what consumers encounter within a food retail outlet, including products, price, promotion and placement. This study aimed to summarize the attributes that have been examined in existing peer‐reviewed studies of Australian consumer nutrition environments, identify knowledge gaps and provide recommendations for future research.MethodsA systematic search of peer‐reviewed literature was conducted. Sixty‐six studies that assessed an aspect of within‐store consumer nutrition environments were included.ResultsMost studies were published from 2011 onwards and were conducted in capital cities and in supermarkets. Studies assessed the domains of product (40/66), price (26/66), promotion (16/66) and placement (6/66). The most common research themes identified were assessment of the impact of area socioeconomic status (13/66), remoteness (9/66) and food outlet type (7/66) on healthy food prices; change in price of healthy foods (6/66); variety of healthy foods (5/66); and prevalence of unhealthy child‐orientated products (5/66).ConclusionsThis scoping review identified a large number of knowledge gaps. Recommended priorities for researchers are as follows: (1) develop consistent observational methodology, (2) consider consumer nutrition environments in rural and remote communities, (3) develop an understanding of food service outlets, (4) build on existing evidence in all four domains of product, price, placement and promotion and (5) determine effective policy and store‐based interventions to increase healthy food selection.

Alignment of Supermarket Own Brand Foods’ Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labelling with Measures of Nutritional Quality: An Australian Perspective

“…The only foods excluded from analysis were infant formula, infant food, baking ingredients, culinary condiments, plain coffee, and tea, as the HSR cannot usefully guide selection of these items. The HSR system is currently undergoing a five-year review, and one of the areas of consideration is the foods it should appear on [ 68 ]. Given an automatic five-star rating currently applies to packaged water [ 58 ], which is a product not required to carry nutrition information [ 69 ], and the fact that supermarkets are currently displaying the HSR on selected fresh whole foods such as meat, it is logical to encourage its use across packaged whole foods, especially the nutritious foods recommended in the AGTHE [ 12 ].…”

“…Nutrient-poor and ultra-processed SOBF were more likely to include the HSR on the front-of-pack than nutritious foods, and many achieved HSR scores of 2.5 stars and over, inaccurately indicating they were a healthy choice. These findings are likely to reflect flaws inherent in the system which are currently being considered in a five-year review [ 68 ], rather than supermarket decision-making per se . Decisions made by the HSR advisory committee to exclude foods such as packaged fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish from the expectation of HSR labelling, but assign an automatic five stars to packaged water [ 58 ], means the recommendations of the Australian Dietary Guidelines [ 12 ] are not promoted consistently.…”

The long-term effectiveness and acceptability of the retailer-led removal of unhealthy drinks from display in a self-service café

“…The consumer nutrition environment (the surroundings, opportunities and conditions that consumers encounter in a food retail outlet, including the physical, economic, policy and socio-cultural environments) is recognised as a major factor influencing dietary choices (6) . Initiatives within the consumer nutrition environment are subsequently of interest to policy makers to reduce unhealthy beverage consumption among Australians and mitigate poor diet as a risk factor for the development of non-communicable diseases (7) .…”

Food availability and advertising within food outlets around primary healthcare services in Brazil

“…The novelty of the present study lies in the description of food advertising inside food stores, evidence that is largely scarce in the literature (12,14) and especially in Latin America, where studies of the consumer food environment focus on evaluating and classifying food stores as healthy or unhealthy based on types of foods found in the stores (31) .…”

“…only food items that are present within a food store are advertised (11) . Food advertising within food outlets involves messages on packaging or signage, shelf labelling, and product samples and is a dimension of the consumer food environment that is little investigated (12,13) . A systematic review of fifty-six primary, quantitative and observational studies, published from 2000 to 2011, concluded that none of the studies mentioned advertising within food retail outlets and the influence of marketing strategies on an individual's food choices (14) .…”