An in-store experimental analysis of consumers' selection of fruits and vegetables

Abstract

Although there is general agreement on the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables (F&V), consumers still do not eat enough. Numerous interventions and government guidelines have been undertaken to promote consumption, but with somewhat misfiring results. Research has identified diverse barriers to increased F&V consumption, which include the retail environment – such as location of F&V within the store compared with the positioning of sweets, availability, nutrition information, and price. We performed a repeated-measures in-store experiment to investigate the effects of F&V placements on consumers' buying behaviour. The in-store experiment manipulated placements of bananas in three ways. The first intervention consisted of placing bananas at the checkout instead of traditional sugar products, the second involved placing the bananas on the sweet shelf in the stores, and the third involved a small marketing mix of the first two interventions in addition to a relevant advertisement in the stores. To enrich the explanatory system, a consumer survey and an in-store observational study was also conducted. The results from the survey showed that consumers had very positive attitudes towards F&V consumption and intended to buy more. In-store interventions were also deemed to be important and necessary by most consumers in the survey. However, in spite of this, the results from the in-store experiment deviated substantially from the outcome of the survey in a way that it was unsuccessful in changing consumers' buying behaviour of bananas in the stores. These results can be viewed through the lenses of the behavioural perspective model of consumer choice and the primrose path theory.

Keywords:

• retailing service
• in-store experiment
• consumer choice
• food consumption

Acknowledgements

Gratitude goes to the executives and store managers of Coop Nord SA in Norway for access to the retail outlets used as an experimental setting. The authors also specially want to thank Søren Bertelsen for his part in conducting the in-store experiment. Gratitude goes also to Cherie Dora Crozier, Jóhanna Bóel Bergmann Hearn, and Sólveig Haraldsdóttir for their part in the data analysis. Valdimar Sigurdsson acknowledges the support provided by a Post-Doctoral Grant from Rannís, The Icelandic Centre for Research.