Department of Public Health, Environments and Society, Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, LondonWC1E 7HT, UK.
The Health Foundation, LondonEC4Y 8AP, UK.
Public Health Nutr. 2020 Aug;23(12):2228-2233. doi: 10.1017/S1368980019004956. Epub 2020 May 5.
Increasing prevalence of overweight and obese people in England has led policymakers to consider regulating the use of price promotions on foods high in fat, sugar and salt content. In January 2019, the government opened a consultation programme for a policy proposal that significantly restricts the use of price promotions that can induce consumers to buy higher volumes of unhealthy foods and beverages. These proposed policies are the first of their kind in public health and are believed to reduce excess purchasing and, therefore, overconsumption of unhealthy products. This study summarises evidence relating price promotions to the purchasing of food and drink for home consumption and places it in the context of the proposed policy.
Non-systematic review of quantitative analyses of price promotions in food and drink published in peer-reviewed journals and sighted by PubMed, ScienceDirect & EBSCOhost between 1980 and January 2018.
While the impact of price promotions on sales has been of interest to marketing academics for a long time with modelling studies showing that its use has increased food and drink sales by 12-43 %, it is only now being picked up in the public health sphere. However, existing evidence does not consider the effects of removing or restricting the use of price promotions across the food sector. In this commentary, we discuss existing evidence, how it deals with the complexity of shoppers' behaviour in reacting to price promotions on foods and, importantly, what can be learned from it in this policy context.
The current evidence base supports the notion that price promotions increase purchasing of unhealthy food, and while the proposed restriction policy is yet to be evaluated for consumption and health effects, there is arguably sufficient evidence to proceed. This evidence is not restricted to volume-based promotions. Close monitoring and proper evaluation should follow to provide empirical evidence of its intended and unintended effects.
英格兰超重和肥胖人群的患病率不断上升，促使政策制定者考虑对高脂肪、高糖和高盐含量食品的价格促销活动进行监管。2019 年 1 月，政府为一项政策提案开启了磋商程序，该提案大幅限制了可能诱使消费者购买更多不健康食品和饮料的价格促销活动的使用。这些拟议政策是公共卫生领域的首创政策，被认为可以减少过度购买，从而减少对不健康产品的过度消费。本研究总结了与食品和饮料的家庭消费购买有关的价格促销活动的证据，并将其置于拟议政策的背景下。
对 1980 年至 2018 年 1 月期间在同行评议期刊上发表的并通过 PubMed、ScienceDirect 和 EBSCOhost 查阅的有关食品和饮料价格促销的定量分析进行非系统性综述。
虽然价格促销对销售的影响一直是营销学术界感兴趣的话题，建模研究表明其使用使食品和饮料的销售额增加了 12%-43%，但现在才开始在公共卫生领域受到关注。然而，现有证据并未考虑在整个食品行业取消或限制使用价格促销的影响。在本评论中，我们讨论了现有证据，它如何处理购物者对食品价格促销做出反应的行为的复杂性，以及在这种政策背景下可以从中吸取什么教训。
现有证据支持这样一种观点，即价格促销活动会增加不健康食品的购买量，虽然拟议的限制政策尚未对消费和健康影响进行评估，但可以说有足够的证据支持其实施。这一证据不仅限于基于数量的促销。应进行密切监测和适当评估，以提供其预期和意外影响的经验证据。
