enhancing food security and physical activity for maori, pacific and ...

Enhancing Food Security and Physical Activity for Māori, Pacific and Low-income PeoplesInformation sharing by supermarkets was seen by one informant as a prelude to makingloss leaders effective as a strategy to enhance food security. This comment was madeby an informant in an Australian context who considered that loss leaders were not alevel playing field because “the supermarkets know exactly who is buying what and howthe patterns of consumption change across the socioeconomic scale”. Questions wereraised about who makes up for the loss.Two informants, including one from industry, reported that they were already havingdiscussions with industry around focusing loss leaders on more healthy foods. Onecommented that many supermarkets were doing this already. Both informants were stilldeveloping an understanding of what was possible in this area.In terms of feasibility and sustainability, comments included that the initiative would needto be retailer led, with a full understanding of what works at the retail level, and that moreresearch was needed to clearly specify the intervention and related processes. Theeffect on equity of focusing loss leaders on healthier choices was seen as positive “if doable”,but would need to be supported by education for broader change in eatingbehaviour. The informants did not see any potential side-effects. Loss leaders wereseen as acceptable generally, and acceptable to industry if done in a self-regulatorymanner.Other pricing strategiesTwo informants talked about other pricing strategies. One informant commented on astrategy of making a 12.5 percent reduction on healthy food choices, as was being usedin the Shop and Go study a . Their opinion was that overall a 12.5 percent reduction“might not be enough to make people want to buy healthy food”. For example, “$1.25 offthe price of a good quality meat priced at $10 per kg may not be enough incentive to lureyou away from sausages, which are still cheaper than the discounted price of the qualitymeat”. Another informant saw opportunities for supermarket chains to reduce prices atsupermarkets located in low-income areas.Industry promotion of healthier foodsFour informants commented on the influence of marketing on food purchasing decisions.Two saw that the marketing of unhealthy foods had greater impact on vulnerablepopulations. An industry informant reported that industry had amended their Codes ofAdvertising to Children along with reducing “the amounts of fat, sugar and salt in all themajor food categories so that choice is there for consumers”. A further informant saw adirect link between marketing and the cost of healthy nutritious food. The mechanism bywhich promotion of healthier foods reduces their cost was seen to be a consumerresponse. “If healthier foods become more mainstream the cost could come down”.An informant who had been working with industry on the promotion of healthier productsreported that this was feasible given that it was an industry-led idea. In terms ofsustainability, the informant found it hard to comment at the time of interview. It wassuggested that any such campaign be evaluated and sustainability would depend onwhether it worked for the manufacturers commercially. The campaign proposed wasmainstream (for all people) but the informant noted that potentially the “element of pricereduction will benefit people on low incomes”. This informant indicated that, froma This reference is to the SHOP study which evaluated the effect of a 12.5% discount (equivalent toremoval of GST) on purchases of healthier supermarket foods118