Promoting Healthier Food Purchases By Leveraging the Online-Grocery Environment

• Conditions: Obesity
• Interventions: Behavioral: Nutrition facts automatically or not automatically displayed; Behavioral: Nutrition facts in color; Behavioral: Nutrition Facts Label in Larger Font; Behavioral: Healthier Items First

• Registration Number: NCT02489396
• Lead Sponsor: University of Vermont

Brief Summary

Rationale: Online-grocery shopping is predicted to be one of the "hottest" food trends of 2014, as national retailers such as Amazon, as well as start-up companies, venture into the e- commerce grocery sector. Importantly, the online-grocery environment could be uniquely manipulated to promote healthier food purchasing and help with weight control. Since consumers tend to choose items listed first on menus and buffet lines, the order of food products displayed on the grocer's website may impact purchasing. Furthermore, it's possible that in an online-grocery environment, nutrition information could be made more salient to consumers. For example, previous research has demonstrated that label color influences perceptions of the healthfulness of foods. The FDA also recently proposed a redesign of foods' nutrition facts panels, which would highlight calorie content in a larger font. Although implementing this label change on all food labels could take years, e-commerce sites could change the format of the nutritional information they display much more quickly.

Objectives: The proposed study intends to nudge consumers to make healthier grocery purchases through three distinct interventions: 1.) Manipulating the order of food items within grocery categories; 2.) Displaying product nutrition information in red or green; and 3.) Presenting calorie information in a larger font size. We propose to examine these concepts in adult consumers using a grocery e-commerce platform servicing socioeconomically and racially diverse communities in the northeastern U.S.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2015-06-29
• Study First Submitted QC: 2015-06-30
• Study First Posted: 2015-07-03
• Study Start: 2015-08
• Status Verified: 2018-04
• Last Update Submitted: 2018-04-30
• Last Update Posted: 2018-05-03
• Primary Completion: 2019-08
• Study Completion: 2019-08

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 400

Inclusion Criteria

• Shopping on a Rosie grocery site

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Exclusion Criteria

• No exclusion criteria, all orders will be eligible

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Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Grocery Customers	Nutrition facts in color	All customers who shop on the Rosie site during the intervention period.
Grocery Customers	Nutrition Facts Label in Larger Font	All customers who shop on the Rosie site during the intervention period.
Grocery Customers	Nutrition facts automatically or not automatically displayed	All customers who shop on the Rosie site during the intervention period.
Grocery Customers	Healthier Items First	All customers who shop on the Rosie site during the intervention period.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Food Purchasing of targeted items	Continuously throughout the intervention expected average of 52 weeks	Company purchasing records will be used to track purchasing of items during the baseline period, as well as during the intervention periods, for the healthier items displayed first and nutrition-facts label interventions.
Click Rate of targeted food items	Continuously throughout the intervention expected average of 52 weeks	We will tabulate a "click-rate" for each targeted product during the intervention periods and at baseline to determine whether consumers clicked on the nutrition facts panels more often for healthier versus less-healthy products, and if consumers clicked more often when calories were displayed in larger fonts or were listed in red/green. We will also be able to determine whether customers clicked more often on the targeted healthy items when they were listed first on the website in each category. Clicks for each item will be tabulated weekly and averaged over the intervention or baseline periods.
Nutrient Analysis of Food Purchased by consumers	Continuously throughout the intervention expected average of 52 weeks	To determine whether average number of calories purchased changed when calories and serving sizes were displayed in larger fonts, we will use purchasing data to compare the average number of calories purchased in orders before the font change to the average number of calories purchased during the font change. Calories per item will be determined using the USDA database, which houses nutrition facts for all foods on the Rosie website.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Vermont; 🇺🇸 Burlington, Vermont, United States