Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Helping facilitate increases in SNAP (i.e., Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children Program) benefit redemption towards healthier foods can bolster the intent of these programs to help those who are the most nutritionally vulnerable. Currently, SNAP and WIC participants’ fruit and vegetable purchasing need improvement (e.g., Guthrie et al., 2007; Oliveira & Frazao, 2015). We introduce the concept of Shopper Marketing Nutrition Interventions (SMNI), which have been shown to enhance purchases of healthier foods, are budget neutral, and economically sustainable for retailers (Payne, et al., 2014). 

SMNIs are salient, easy-to-understand, and provide suggestions that SNAP and WIC shoppers can use to compare against their current shopping behavior.  To this end, we discuss the effects of two SMNIs on government food assistance participant purchases of fruits and vegetables.  The first intervention leverages a grocery distributor’s fruit and vegetable packaging program that included 16 fruits and vegetables.  These fruits and vegetables were packaged in cellophane wrap and Styrofoam bottom in pairs (e.g., two apples).  The paired produced were at a price point that would be attractive to government food assistance participants (i.e., .99 cents).  In two stores located in the same zip code, the fruits and vegetables were placed near the cash register in a chiller to maximize salience and convenience.  Finally, cashiers were trained to suggest to all shoppers to consider purchase of the convenient, low price, pre-packaged fruits and vegetables. A control store was used to compare results (e.g., SNAP, WIC, and other purchases) between treatment stores while baseline time periods were used to compare results within treatment stores’ intervention periods.

The second intervention leverages a partner grocery chains’ existing sales circular format to promote fruits and vegetables that are clearly eligible for government food assistance redemption and were stated to be some of the most popular produce items. The test sales circulars were created after pre-testing (via internet consumer panel) seventeen different versions based on best practice menu design.  The versions that—as compared to a base circular—increased consideration of healthier purchases and healthier purchases relative to everything else, but kept total item considerations neutral (i.e., attempting to not increase total purchases) were selected for deployment into the sales circular rotation in two stores located in the same zip code. A control store was also used to compare results between treatment stores while baseline time periods were used to compare results within treatment stores’ intervention periods.

Finally, we discuss the development of a data tool that allows easy extraction of retailer data to evaluate not only if SMNIs are effective for government food assistance participant procurement of healthier foods, but also if the interventions help keep shoppers’ budgets neutral while enhancing retailer profitability. An added benefit of the tool is the integration of USDA-based databases that allow evaluation of purchases in terms of recommended amounts for healthier diets.