Skip to main content

Table 2 Relationship between within-store retail food environment attributes, research questions, and data collection for the Supermarket Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool – Supermarket Own Brands

From: The extent and nature of supermarket own brand foods in Australia: study protocol for describing the contribution of selected products to the healthfulness of food environments

Attributea

Research questions

Data required

Product

 (a) Product availability and quality

• What is the availability of healthy and unhealthy own brand foods in Australian supermarkets?

• What proportion of supermarket own brand foods are Australian made?

Supermarket own brand name, product name, product description, pack size, pack weight, price, price promotion, Australia made logo, Australia included in product title or description

 (b) Product assortment

• How many supermarket own brand foods are available?

• How much variety of supermarket own brand foods is available i.e. breadth of choice across categories and depth of choice within each category, particularly in ready-to-eat foods?

Products assigned to one of 18 food groups, and 131 product groups

 (c) Design of products and packaging

• How many own brands are used by Australian supermakets?

• What supplementary nutrition information is made available on front-of-pack of supermarket own brands?

• What is the prevalence of messages promoting value or convenience on supermarket own brand foods?

Supermarket own brands packaging design techniques including words/ colours/ images promoting value or convenience, front-of-pack supplementary nutrition information

 (d) Nutritional quality

• What supermarket own brand foods are available in each of the AGTHE food groups?

• How do supermarket own brand foods rate using the HSR system?

• What is the prevalence of healthy lines of supermarket own brand foods?

• How are supermarket own brand foods categorised using the NOVA system?

Supermarket own brands to be classified using the AGTHE and NOVA using front-of-pack information only; HSR to be recorded from front-of-pack

 (e) Provision of supermarket own brand products

• What is the prevalence of supermarket own brand ethically sourced foods?

• What is the prevalence of supermarket own brand convenience foods?

Supermarket own brand statements and logos relating to ethical food standards; messages and design techniques relating to convenience

Price

 (f) Pricing strategy

• How does the price of healthy supermarket own brand foods compare with unhealthy own brand foods?

Analysis using price and nutritional quality data

 (h) Price promotions

• How are supermarket own brand foods promoted using price? For example, using price reductions, multi-buy offers, everyday low pricing, coupons, and price marked packs.

• How does price promotion of healthy supermarket own brand foods compare with unhealthy own brand foods?

Analysis using supermarket own brands price promotion techniques and nutritional quality data

Placement

 (i) In-store location

• Where are supermarket own brand foods physically located within stores? For example, are any at the ends-of-aisles, at checkouts, in island dump bins?

• What is the prevalence of co-locating supermarket own brand foods adjacent to the branded equivalent?

Supermarket own brands physical location in store, including whether on the perimeter of the store, or the aisle

 (j) Shelf location

• How prominently located are supermarket own brand foods?

• How is supermarket signage or décor used to give supermarket own brands prominence?

Supermarket own brands prominence in store, including whether in blocks, at eye level, large number of shelf facings, and signage or décor

Promotion

 (k) Health messages

• How is supermarket own brand packaging information classified using a taxonomy of nutrition and health related packaging information?

• How are the quality standards applied to supermarket own brand foods communicated to shoppers?

• How are the ethical standards applied to own brand foods communicated to shoppers?

Marketing techniques and nutrition and health statements and claims, logos or statements about product quality or quality standards in general, and logos or statements about ethical standards

 (l) Promotions targeting children

• What is the prevalence of supermarket own brand foods designed to appeal to children?

• What proportion of supermarket own brand products designed to appeal to children can be described as healthy?

Marketing techniques designed to appeal to children (included in the taxonomy above); analysis of the nutritional quality of selected products

 (m) Other promotions

• What other techniques are used on supermarket own brand products?

Information from the front-of-pack of supermarket own brands

  1. aAttributes adapted from Glanz and colleagues [6, 7]; AGTHE is Australian Guide to Healthy Eating; NOVA is a classification system based on the level of food processing; HSR is the Health Star Rating front-of-pack labelling system