The Role of Food Retailers in the Promotion of Healthful, Low-Cost Products to WIC Recipients

ABSTRACT

There is a gap in the literature around promotion of healthy and low-cost food options for WIC recipients. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with retailers to explore the challenges and opportunities of promotions to WIC recipients. Retailers reported doing little to no promotions targeted at WIC recipients at the time of interview. The possibility of increased revenue, particularly for fruits and vegetables, presents an area of potential collaboration between public health officials and retailers. The main barriers to increased promotions were restrictions around promotions directly marketed to WIC recipients and concern by retailers and policymakers about potential stigmatization.

KEYWORDS:

• WIC
• nutrition assistance
• nutrition
• health promotion
• food policy

Acknowledgments

This study was conducted as part of the Duke-UNC USDA Center for Behavioral Economics and Healthy Food Choice Research (BECR). The BECR Center was funded by grant 59-5000-4-0062 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not represent those of the US Department of Agriculture, its Economic Research Service or Food and Nutrition Service. Thanks to Isabel Osbourne at UNC-Chapel Hill for transcript coding assistance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture [59-5000-4-0062].