It’s not about choice: the supermarket and obesity

The emergence of supermarkets as a form of retailing and increasing reliance on manufactured foods have paralleled the increase in the rate and severity of obesity. So, it makes sense to examine supermarkets and how they successfully market these now widely used goods to the community.

Supermarkets have an almost universal captive market — they will always have customers. Like any business, they invest money and effort into inducing their customers to buy more goods in any one visit, and particularly goods that return a high profit margin. This suggests that analysing the design of food retail spaces, such as supermarkets, may be valuable in efforts to stem obesity and related illnesses.

Retail design companies market their ability to geographically locate, and then plan, the interior design of stores to increase sales. Shoppers may believe that, on entering a supermarket, they browse products at a pace and in an order of their choosing, determining which products to buy and in what quantities. However, most people are unaware of the effort that has been made, based on a century of multidisciplinary research,1 to exert psychological and physical influence over their behaviour. Even now, to obtain data to guide retail design, shoppers may be surreptitiously followed by a “tracker”, who gathers data on a “track sheet”, recording everything the shopper does.2 This information, in addition to data obtained from closed-circuit cameras and GPS-like devices on shopping trolleys, is collected and analysed.3 The techniques subsequently employed to guide consumers are pervasive and subtle. These strategies work, and they result in consumption environments that are detrimental to human health instead of being neutral or welfare-promoting. This means that, contrary to the chief justification used by those opposed to regulatory intervention to tackle obesity, consumers do not make autonomous choices in a neutral market environment.

A variety of techniques are used to manipulate how shoppers travel through supermarkets. Placing food and other staples (like detergent or tampons) on opposite sides of the supermarket means that shoppers must walk through the whole supermarket, which increases the likelihood of impulse purchases. “Loss leaders” — usually staples sold at very low prices, sometimes below cost — are used to entice customers into stores where they inevitably purchase additional items.4 Popular items are located in the middle of the aisles. Positioning at eye level is reserved for products providing a higher profit margin. Thus, suppliers pay “slotting fees” to have their products included as an item for sale and a premium for a good location.5,6 The use of music to control shoppers’ pace through the supermarket is insidious, and it is difficult not to respond. The optimal tempo for supermarket music is fast enough to keep shoppers moving through the aisles, but slow enough to encourage them to browse shelves and make unplanned purchases. The placement of bakery items and fruit and vegetables at the entry of supermarkets is part of the “theatre” of retail space, used to create the illusion of the supermarket as a healthy food outlet and to lure customers into the store.

Shoppers’ assessments of value are relative. They may not know the absolute value of a 200 g packet of chips, but they know they are getting twice as much as in a 100 g packet. When a 200 g packet of potato chips is priced at less than double the price of a 100 g packet, shoppers perceive that it is better value. Supermarkets encourage people to buy value-bundled items and larger portions or packages than they want or need. These are often placed towards the ends of aisles, on the shopper’s way to popular items. This is a strategy that readily induces shoppers to overbuy and, therefore, overconsume.

The notion that we are free to choose what we eat operates as a significant obstacle to regulatory intervention to prevent obesity. Those advocating for government action are frequently accused of promoting a “nanny state”. Yet the supermarket is designed to be a non-neutral site that directs the exercise of choice in favour of processed products, which return the greatest profits. Choice is deliberately and surreptitiously guided in ways that are counterproductive to good health. When these strategies are combined with the effects of food marketing, it is likely that occasional, time-limited public health campaigns to encourage healthy eating will have little impact. All of this makes the supermarket environment a legitimate target in the battle to make healthy choices a little easier.