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Progress Evaluation for the Restaurant Industry Assessed by a Voluntary Marketing-Mix and Choice-Architecture Framework That Offers Strategies to Nudge American Customers toward Healthy Food Environments, 2006-2017

Equity Focus

This study targets to evaluate the progress of restaurants' strategies to promote healthy options in the United States.

Case Summary

The project conducted a desk review of seven electronic databases (January 2006–January 2017) to examine restaurant strategies used to promote healthful options in the United States (U.S.). Evidence selection (n= 84) was guided by the LEAD principles (i.e., locate, evaluate, and assemble evidence to inform decisions) and verified by data and investigator triangulation. A marketing-mix and choice-architecture framework was used to examine eight voluntary strategies (i.e., place, profile, portion, pricing, promotion, healthy default picks, priming or prompting and proximity) to evaluate progress (i.e., no, limited, some or extensive) toward 12 performance metrics based on available published evidence. The U.S. restaurant sector has made limited progress to use pricing, profile (reformulation), healthy default picks (choices), promotion (responsible marketing) and priming and prompting (information and labeling); and some progress to reduce portions.

Lessons Learned

• This project tested a novel marketing-mix and choice-architecture framework to evaluate the nature and extent of voluntary strategies used by U.S. chain and non-chain restaurants to promote healthy food environments for customers. This framework could serve as a useful planning tool for restaurant owners and managers, as well as an evaluation approach for other public- and private-sector stakeholders in the U.S. and other countries to monitor and evaluate progress of the restaurant sector to meet healthy targets.

LINK TO CASE STUDY