Oral Presentation ANZOS-OSSANZ-AOCO Joint Annual Scientific Meeting 2017

Monitoring price promotions for all beverages sold within Australian supermarkets (#112)

Beth Gilham 1 , Anna Peeters 1 , tara Bolesen_robinson 1 , Miranda Blake 1 , Adrian Cameron 1 , Jason Wu 2 , Kathryn Backholer 1
  1. Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia
  2. Food Policy Unit, The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Price promotions (temporary price reductions or discounts) have been identified as a key driver of food and beverage choice and represent an important potential target for health policy. This is particularly true for sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs), which are currently in the political spotlight for their known association with excess weight gain, dental caries and a number of other chronic conditions. Nevertheless, there has been little systematic and regular evaluation of the type and extent of beverage price promotions in supermarkets world-wide, and none in Australia. We aimed to conduct a weekly (aligned with price promotion timeframes) systematic audit of all ready-to-drink beverage price promotions sold online at the two major Australian Supermarkets (Coles and Woolworths) over 52 weeks (October 2016 – October 2017; >600 beverage products per week). Information extracted for each beverage product included product name, volume, pack size, beverage category (from 20 different categories, e.g. carbonated sugar sweetened beverage, 100% juice), non-special retail price, special price and multi-buy information. A complete audit of all beverages sold (>2500 beverages with and without price promotion) was collected every quarter. Interim analysis of 26 weeks of data has identified that price promotions are ubiquitous across all beverages types (complete 52 weeks analysis due October). Price promotions were identified within each beverage category for >90% of the data collection period (with the exception of diet cordials, with price promotions 73% of the time). Average price reductions were greatest for carbonated SSBs (34.0% price reduction), followed by diet carbonated beverages (33.8%) and sports drinks (33.3%). Price promotions are extensively used for ready-to-drink beverages sold within Australian supermarkets and may undermine current policies to tax SSBs (commonly implemented with a 10-20% price increase). Restricting SSB price promotions may represent a possible strategy to manipulate their price and reduce population SSB purchase and consumption.