Deal or no deal? The prevalence and nutritional quality of price promotions among U.S. food and beverage purchases.

OBJECTIVE

This study examines trends in the prevalence of price promotions among packaged food and beverage purchases, differences in prevalence by household race/ethnicity or income, and the association between price promotions and the nutritional profile of purchases.

DESIGN

This cross-sectional study utilizes a dataset of 90 million purchases from 38,744 (2008) to 45,042 (2012) US households in 2008-2012. Chi-square tests were used to examine whether the proportion of purchases with price promotions changed over time or differed by household race/ethnicity or income. T-tests were used to compare purchased products' nutritional profiles.

RESULTS

Prevalence of price promotions among packaged food and beverage purchases increased by 8% and 6%, respectively, from 2008 to 2012, with both reaching 34% by 2012. Higher-income households had greater proportions of purchases with price promotions than lower-income households. Asian households had the highest proportion of purchases with any price promotion, followed by non-Hispanic whites. While total price-promoted packaged food purchases had higher mean energy, total sugar, and saturated fat densities than purchases with no price promotions, absolute differences were small.

CONCLUSIONS

Prevalence of price promotions among US household purchases increased from 2008 to 2012 and was greater for higher-income households. No clear associations emerged between presence of price promotions and nutritional quality of purchases.