Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-Authorized Retailers’ Perceived Costs to Use Behavioral Economic Strategies to Encourage Healthy Product Sales

ABSTRACT

SNAP-authorized retailers could use marketing-mix and choice-architecture (MMCA) strategies to improve SNAP purchases, but associated costs are unknown. Perceived cost and inconvenience to implement eight MMCA strategies were assessed among 29 U.S. retailers. Differences in perspective were explored (owners vs. managers, corporate vs. independent retailers, and by format). Place changes (e.g., added refrigeration) were perceived more costly and prompting (e.g., shelf labeling) less costly. Managers rated the perceived inconvenience to make proximity changes higher than owners (3.78 ± 1.4 and 2.33 ± 1.2, respectively) (p < .05). Results can inform strategies to improve the adoption and implementation of healthy food retail programs.

KEYWORDS:

• SNAP
• food retailer
• implementation cost
• marketing mix
• choice architecture

Acknowledgments

Authors thank Liza Dobson, MS for help facilitating data collection and Khawlah Kheshaifaty, MS for assisting with manuscript formatting.

Financial support

This research was partially supported by the Margaret C. Hepler Fellowship awarded by the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Virginia SNAP-Ed, and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch project 1024670. This study represents a portion of doctoral research.

Authorship

BH is responsible for leading the research including research inception, study design, data analysis, manuscript writing, and revisions. ES contributed to the research inception, study design, and data interpretation. SC helped with data collection and data interpretation. VK, SH, GD, and SM contributed to study design and data interpretation. All authors provided multiple edits and approved the manuscript in its final form.

Ethical standards disclosure

This research utilized human subjects and was approved by Virginia Tech’s Institutional Review Board.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Hepler Fellowship awarded by the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, Virginia SNAP-Ed, and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch project 1024670.