Abstract

Introduction: Price-incentivised increases in the uptake of healthier vending machine options have been demonstrated in both colleges and workplaces in the US. While less affluent social groups are known to be more price sensitive, the extent to which this might impact on the success of price incentives remains unexplored. We examined the relative effectiveness of a 25% price reduction in increasing the uptake of nutritionally balanced vending machine options across 4 diverse worksites in Scotland serviced by the same vending company.
Methods: Four worksites were selected for their size (range: 250–1200 employees), internal workforce homogeneity and diversity of business (From IT to manufacturing). At least 30% of all vending options were classed as nutritionally balanced (labelled ‘EatWise’) using FSA-approved software. Weekly average proportionate uptake of ‘EatWise’ options was monitored by electronic receipts over a 12 week baseline period, before a six week long price discount intervention of 25%.
Results: The proportional uptake of ‘EatWise’ balanced options increased in the discount phase by 34.5% (p < 0.001); 1.8% (p = 0.42); 12.9% (p = 0.023) and 19.6% (p = 0.0010) for sites A to D respectively. The only non-significant change was for site B (health-sector), where uptake of balanced options was much higher at baseline (71%) as were the relative stocking levels.
Conclusion: Price-discounting can be an effective means of initiating more nutritiously balanced vending choices among diverse groups of employees in a Scottish population.