Welcome to RE-FRESH: Next Generation!
Retail food environments strongly influence what foods and beverages we buy and in turn influence what we eat and our overall health. Globally, and in Australia, retail food environments such as supermarkets, convenience stores, cafes, vending machines and cafeterias in hospitals and recreation centres have the potential to actively promote good health and well-being.
However many retail food environments are strongly biased towards the promotion of unhealthy foods and drinks, making healthier choices difficult. Our research has shown that 80% of display space at checkout and end-of-aisle displays in Australian supermarkets are devoted to unhealthy food1 and unhealthy food is price-discounted twice as often as healthy food — and the discounts are twice as big2.
Retail food environments that prioritise the availability and affordability of unhealthy food and drinks and heavily market these foods over healthier foods lead to energy-dense-nutrient poor diets which contribute to poor health.
The Australian government has recently recognised the importance of healthy retail food environments through initiatives such as the Australian National Obesity Strategy (2022-2032) and the National Preventive Health Strategy (2021-2030). This highlights a key opportunity for taking action to create healthier food environments. Consequently, RE-FRESH: Next Generation will develop and translate the evidence required to achieve healthy retail food environments at scale, with research designed to impact retail food environments via multiple mechanisms including government policy, holding retail stakeholders to account and supporting direction action by retailers.
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