Vending Labeling Sales and Intercepts Study

A Large Scale Long-term Randomized Trial of Nutrition Labeling Interventions

The aim of this study is to compare the impact of 4 different types of front of package (FOP) food and beverage messages: 1) green labels on healthy foods, 2) red/yellow/green labels on less healthy/moderately healthy/healthy foods, 3) physical activity calorie equivalent labels, and 4) posters reminding consumers of the sweetened beverage tax on consumers' beverage and snack selections.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Obesity; Weight Gain; Food Preferences
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: exposure to healthy labels only; Behavioral: exposure to healthiness information; Behavioral: exposure to physical activity equivalents; Behavioral: exposure to sweetened beverage tax messaging

Detailed Description

This project involves a randomized field experiment. The investigators worked with the vending contractor for the City of Philadelphia to randomize vending machine locations (covering ~260 beverage and snack machines) to one of the four different message conditions: 1) single green traffic light labels (on healthy foods); 2) multiple traffic light labels (red traffic light labels applied to less healthy foods, yellow applied to moderately healthy foods, and green on healthy foods); 3) physical activity labels (calorie content displayed in terms of physical activity equivalents); 4) posters reminding consumers of the Philadelphia sweetened beverage tax and encouraging healthier choices. The City's vending machine contractors provided monthly aggregated sales data from each machine for analysis. Customer intercepts were also collected at the point of sale, after customers completed their purchase, to evaluate factors that moderate message influence. They were asked to answer questions about their perceptions of the different labels.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1065
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
      • University of Pennsylvania

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Sales data include all purchases at the machine regardless of customer demographics.

Customer purchase assessment data were collected from:

Inclusion Criteria:

• Any person aged 18 or older making a purchase from the vending machines included in this intervention will be asked to participate in this study.

Exclusion Criteria:

• People who indicate they have already taken the survey are not eligible to take the survey again.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Green labels; green label added to healthy product slots; no additional labels shown for "less healthy" products and 1 poster per machine explaining the labels	Behavioral: exposure to healthy labels only; Green labels only for beverages and foods scored as healthy
Experimental: Traffic light labels; red/yellow/green labels added to slots for less healthy/moderately healthy/healthy products, respectively and 1 poster per machine explaining the labels	Behavioral: exposure to healthiness information; All beverages and foods labeled as either healthy (green), moderately healthy (yellow), or less healthy (red)
Experimental: Physical activity calorie equivalent labels; labels added to slots that display products' calorie content in terms of physical activity required to burn those calories and 1 poster per machine explaining the labels	Behavioral: exposure to physical activity equivalents; All beverages and foods labeled with physical activity required to burn their calories
Experimental: Sweetened beverage tax posters; 1 poster per machine; no labels; posters reminded consumers of the Philadelphia sweetened beverage tax and encouraging healthier choices	Behavioral: exposure to sweetened beverage tax messaging; Message reminding consumers to make healthier choices

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Percentage of beverages sold with calories per month	Outcome is percentage of monthly beverages selected that had calories	Every month, for 13 months
Calories sold from beverages per month, if beverages with calories sold	Outcome is calories in beverages sold per month - only for beverages with calories.	Every month, for 13 months
Calories sold from snacks per month	Outcome is calories in snacks sold per month.	Every month, for 13 months
Likelihood of selecting a healthy beverage	Outcome is percentage of monthly beverages selected were healthy beverages (green labeled in the traffic light condition)	Every month, for 13 months
Likelihood of selecting a moderately healthy beverage	Outcome is percentage of monthly beverages selected were moderately healthy beverages (yellow labeled in the traffic light condition)	Every month, for 13 months
Likelihood of selecting a less healthy beverage	Outcome is percentage of monthly beverages selected were less healthy beverages (red labeled in the traffic light condition)	Every month, for 13 months
Likelihood of selecting a healthy snack	Outcome is percentage of monthly snacks selected were healthy snacks (green labeled in the traffic light condition)	Every month, for 13 months
Likelihood of selecting a moderately healthy snack	Outcome is percentage of monthly snacks selected were moderately healthy snacks (yellow labeled in the traffic light condition)	Every month, for 13 months
Likelihood of selecting a less healthy snack	Outcome is percentage of monthly snacks selected were less healthy snacks (red labeled in the traffic light condition)	Every month, for 13 months
Total beverage units sold per month per machine.	Outcome is number of monthly beverages sold per machine	Every month, for 13 months
Total snack units sold per month per machine	Outcome is number of monthly snacks sold per machine	Every month, for 13 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Total revenue per month per beverage machine	Outcome is the total dollar sales per month per beverage machine.	Every month, for 13 months
Total revenue per month per snack machine	Outcome is the total dollar sales per month per snack machine.	Every month, for 13 months
Total calories sold per customer trip	Customer purchase assessments will be conducted in front of study machines. Outcome is total number of calories (beverage + snack) purchased per customer trip.	5-minute survey

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
• Collaborators: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Christina A Roberto, University of Pennsylvania

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 12, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): March 12, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 29, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 6, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): February 15, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 15, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 6, 2024
• Last Verified: February 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: food labeling; sugar-sweetened beverages; eating; drinking; choice behavior
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Body Weight; Body Weight Changes; Weight Gain
• Other Study ID Numbers: 828722; R01DK113307 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract); 15163 (Registry Identifier: AsPredicted.org)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Machine sales data are proprietary and cannot be shared. However, no identifiable data were collected from the customer purchase assessments, so after analysis, the investigators will upload the customer de-identified data to ResearchBox for public sharing.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: starting 6 months after publication
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: public
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: SAP

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No