Blog

May 12, 2023

How supermarket design influences what you put in your trolley

It's time to do your grocery shopping. You've got your reusable bags and your

It's time to do your grocery shopping. You've got your reusable bags and your shopping list.

You've written down everything you need to prepare meals for the week: staples like bread, milk and eggs, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and healthy snacks for the family.

But there's a lot more that's happening in the supermarket that influences what you put in your trolley.

It starts as soon as you enter the store, when you pass through what's known as a "decompression zone".

It's designed to provide a transition from the outside world to a carefully curated retail environment that primes you for the forthcoming shopping experience.

You might see a stand of bright flowers and the fresh produce section filled with colourful fruit and vegetables.

You might even detect the enticing aroma of freshly baked bread wafting over from the bakery section.

"All of this is done on purpose," says Louise Grimmer, a senior lecturer in retail marketing at the University of Tasmania.

"When we see fresh things, like flowers and fruit and vegetables, it puts us in a good mood, we might be more relaxed, and we're going to spend more money if we're relaxed and feeling good."

Already you've chosen your trolley – the bigger the better, from the supermarket's point of view.

"There has been some research that has shown when you have a big trolley, you're spending about 40 per cent more – and I know I have done that," says Grimmer.

The supermarket is a familiar setting to most Australians, who spend $4.7 billion at food and grocery retailers each year.

In Australia's highly concentrated market, two retailers — Coles and Woolworths — share 66 per cent of the market.

Most people think a visit to the supermarket is an exercise of "freedom of choice", says Julie Brimblecombe, associate professor of public health nutrition at Monash University.

In reality, you're subject to a process of "choice editing", using everything from store layout to product placement to sensory inputs like sound and smell.

And this has implications for your health.

You might already be wary of ultra-processed foods – packaged products with ingredients like additives, hydrolysed proteins, hydrogenated oils and emulsifiers.

Studies have shown that high consumption of these foods is associated with an increase in disease and obesity.

But for shoppers trying to avoid them, experts say the average supermarket is a "minefield".

Feeling a little lost? Supermarkets are designed to be disorientating.

There are no windows, there's very bright lighting, and there are no clocks.

Most supermarkets feature the same grid layout to encourage shoppers to walk up and down each aisle.

Essentials like bread and milk are dispersed around the store.

Ever struggled to find the eggs? You're not the only one.

"They want to make sure that you're hunting through the store, and then you're going to be exposed to all of these other products," says Grimmer.

"The longer you stay, the more money you're going to spend."

Supermarkets also use "slow to mid tempo" music to set the mood — anything too fast will encourage shoppers to race through the store. Coles even has its own radio network.

The modern supermarket "has more in common with a casino than a traditional market", VicHealth CEO Sandro Demaio tells ABC TV's Magda's Big National Health Check.

"This is all a recipe for selling more foods … that are often packed with salt, fat and sugar."

A lot of planning goes into determining what goes where on the supermarket shelf.

You're more likely to reach for what you can see at eye level, which is where you'll find the big-name brands and the supermarket-owned "private-label" products.

In the cereal aisle, brightly packaged products aimed at children are placed on the mid to lower shelves – eye level for a child on foot or sitting in a trolley.

But take a moment to look up or down. You'll see cheaper items from smaller manufacturers – the companies that are being squeezed out by private-label products.

Supermarkets use the "four Ps" of marketing — product availability, promotion, price and placement — to encourage us to buy certain products, says Brimblecombe.

Ultra-processed foods are cheap to make "and sell well, and so they're the foods that tend to get the best real estate in supermarkets, and therefore are highly visible to the customers", she says.

In the health food aisle — a recent innovation now found in most supermarkets — you'll find products making various nutrition claims.

However, don't assume these products are healthy, cautions Adrian Cameron, an associate professor at Deakin University and an associate director at the Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE).

"A low sugar product … might be high in salt or fat," he says.

A supermarket's postcode can also influence what you find on the shelves.

In the most disadvantaged areas, the proportion of shelf space allocated to unhealthy foods and drinks compared with healthy items is 9.7 per cent higher than in the most affluent areas.

Even if you don't travel up and down each aisle, you'll most likely need to pass from one side of the supermarket to the other – from fresh produce to the freezer cabinet, for example – to complete your weekly shop.

On the way, you pass the "end caps", the prominent end-of-aisle displays that are the supermarket's most sought-after real estate.

Promotional material uses eye-catching colours – think yellow or red, or a combination – to draw your attention to what's on sale.

Cameron says two-for-one deals and half price discounts bring people through the door.

Supermarket marketing and promotions, he says, are "heavily biased towards unhealthy discretionary foods" – a category that includes high-energy, low-nutrient products like cakes, chips, lollies and soft drinks.

Discretionary food and drink accounts for 66 per cent of price-promoted shelf space in end-of-aisle displays, according to data collated by Australia's Food Environment Dashboard.

"It's not just the retailer doing all the marketing," Cameron notes. "It's a combination of retailers and food manufacturers.

"All those marketing elements cost money, and the companies that are most likely to have money to put things on end-of-aisle displays, to do a price discount, to do special displays, are your bigger multinationals. And a lot of what they make is ultra-processed packaged food."

A company might also pay the supermarket to secure their product a certain amount of shelf space or to ensure it appears in more than one place around the store.

"Soft drinks, for instance, might appear on the shelf, but they're also on the end-of-aisle displays [and] they're in the fridges at the checkouts," Cameron says.

The negotiations between retailers and manufacturers regarding product placement and promotion occur "behind closed doors, so you don't see it happening," says Cameron, who would like to see retailers introduce transparent policies around price promotions.

"Our research showed that unhealthy food was on price promotion twice as often and the discounts were twice as big."

You've finished your shopping, and it's time to head to the checkout.

Here, you encounter an array of curated products designed to tempt you while you patiently wait your turn.

Discretionary foods take up 78 per cent of checkout shelf space, according to Australia's Food Environment Dashboard.

"There's a huge percentage of shoppers that pick up chocolate bars or chewing gum or soft drinks while they're waiting in the queue," says Grimmer.

You won't find chocolate bars at the checkout in the UK, which recently introduced regulations limiting the sale of food and drink high in fat, salt and sugar at the checkout, end-of-aisle and store entrances of food retailers.

Cameron would like to see similar regulations introduced in Australia.

"[It would be] a really positive step," he says. "Unlike a soft drink tax, they cover all the food in the store – it's not just one product."

Health-promoting policies aren't necessarily bad for business. In 2018, Monash University partnered with the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA) on a project to address the high consumption of discretionary foods in the remote communities ALPA serves.

Together they developed Healthy Stores 2020, a seven-point strategy to reduce the visibility of discretionary food such as soft drinks and confectionery in ALPA's stores.

Trialled over 12 weeks, the pilot program was a success. "It led to statistically significant reductions in sugar sold through those types of products, and it didn't adversely impact on gross profit," says Brimblecombe, who led the project.

As a result, ALPA subsequently rolled out Healthy Stores 2020 across all its stores.

Brimblecombe says it worked because of ALPA's "strong sense of social purpose" and the co-design process, which resulted in a strategy that targeted promotion of discretionary foods rather than curtailing customers' freedom of choice.

"The choice was still there; customers could still buy chocolates, lollies and soft drinks," she says. "It just wasn't in the customer's face as it may have been previously."

In Norway, one supermarket chain increased the size and prominence of the fresh food area, gave fruit and vegetable discounts to loyal customers, and stocked the checkout and other displays with fruit cups.

The result: fruit and vegetable sales increased by 34 per cent over eight years.

So, what can you do to navigate the minefield of processed food at the supermarket?

Be wary of promotions, ignore marketing claims and read the label, advise the experts.

"You're striving for as many raw ingredients as possible," says Grimmer. "If you see a whole lot of ingredients that you don't recognise, it might not be as healthy as the packaging is telling you."

Learn more and get inspired by visiting our Your Move collections on ABC iview.

Remember that the Health Star Rating system compares like for like — two types of cereal, for example.

It does not measure how healthy a product is, so a four-star item could still be high in salt, sugar or fat — it just rates better than other products in its category.

Try to avoid processed food where possible by shopping "the edge of the store", offers Cameron.

"The Australian guide to healthy eating … tells you what you should be putting in your trolley to eat healthy – and that's completely the opposite of what you're seeing in the supermarket."

Magda's Big National Health Check continues on Tuesday, November 15, at 8:30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.

Want to hear more about food and design? Catch up on Blueprint for Living, and rummage through the essential ingredients for a good life — places, spaces, food, gardens and design — on the ABC listen app.