Food and non-alcoholic drinks according to the type of store

A poor food environment plays a major role in the global burden of diseases, especially obesity and diet-related NCDs. The availability of healthy foods and the purchase of them at different stores play a key role in creating a positive food environment.

Assess whether the purchase of non-alcoholic drinks and food products is affected by the type of retail store.

The data from the Nielsen New Zealand Homescan (r) panel was analysed cross-sectionally. This is a nationally representative sample consisting of 2500 households, based on certain demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The panel members were asked by Nielsen to keep track of all the food and beverages that they purchased and brought home from October 2018 to October 2019. To extract information on the nutritional profile of the products purchased, we linked household food and non-alcoholic drinks purchases with two food databases (Nutritrack, a New Zealand packaged foods composition database, and FOODfiles, New Zealand Food Composition Database). We created a tool for identifying stores and classified them as supermarkets or grocery stores. We calculated the Health Star rating (HSR) of all products, and deemed a product that had an HSR >=3.5 to be ‘healthy. We calculated the estimated mean HSR and performed multivariate regression analysis.

The analysis included 3,940.458 purchases, which consisted of 20,491 unique purchases that were made by 1800 households in different stores during a one-year period. The majority of food and drinks purchased by households (3,545,141 out of 3,940458, or 90%) were supermarket products. The estimated average HSR is 3.5 stars. Comparing the odds ratios of healthy products bought at fruit and vegetable stores, grocery stores, and meat and fish shops, to those purchased in supermarkets as a reference group, they were 4.62, 2.36, and 1.99, respectively. Contrastingly, odds ratios for convenience stores and bakeries are 0.58 and 0.03. These differences are statistically significant, except for convenience stores (p 0.05).

The type of food store that households purchase healthy food from is very different. They are more likely to buy healthier food from grocery stores, fruit and vegetable shops, meat and seafood stores, and even from supermarkets. Bakeries and convenience stores were much less likely than supermarkets to sell healthy food.

All retail stores should be considered when developing policies to promote healthy food retailing. However, the focus of these policies should be on increasing the availability of healthy foods in convenience stores and bakeries. Since supermarkets account for the majority of household food purchases, both healthy and unhealthy, strategies should be developed to increase the relative purchase and availability of healthy foods in supermarkets.