RE-FRESH: Next Generation approaches the challenge of creating healthier retail food environments using three different mechanisms to drive change.

About Stream 3 – Supporting scale-up and sustainment of retailer initiatives:

Through the previous RE-FRESH Centre of Research Excellence (2018-2023), we supported retailers across a range of settings to design and implement healthy food retail initiatives – and we tested these through multiple randomised controlled trials that showed they were effective, feasible for retailers, and cost-effective for public health.

However, our partners have identified that sustained implementation and scale-up of these programs by different types of retailers is hindered by a lack of tailored resources and tools.

To address this, Stream 3 will:

  1. Synthesise the evidence on what initiatives work in which contexts;
  2. Develop and test new sector-specific, co-created and evidence-informed tools and resources for those implementing changes; and
  3. Expand existing partnerships to scale-up implementation of healthy food retail practices, using new context-specific tools and capacity building initiatives.