Using In-Store Marketing, Mirrors in Carts to Push Fresh Produce

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Several food stores across the nation are experimenting with unique ways—such as in-store marketing and altering shopping carts—to gently “nudge” people to improve their eating habits by buying more fresh fruits and vegetables, the New York Times reports.

Here are some innovative ways pointed out in the new story:

• In El Paso, which is predominantly Latino, some stores place a mirror in grocery carts so people can reflect on what items they put in their cart.
• Also in El Paso, researchers put mats with large green arrows on the floor to point shoppers toward produce aisles.
• Also in El Paso, researchers also English/Spanish places signs in carts that told shoppers how much produce the average customer buys, and the top-selling produce items.
• A Virginia grocer use yellow duct tape to divide carts in half and used a flier to ask shoppers to put fruits and vegetables in the front half. Produce sales rose.

“I think what they’re doing is very innovative and clever,” Michael R. Lowe, a Drexel University psychology professor and longtime researcher on weight control, told the New York Times. “If you put up some cues that remind people of their weight or healthy eating, without hitting them over the head, they will go and choose healthier items. The mirror might do that, but the question will be, ‘What kind of memory association will their body elicit?’ And that is hard to know beforehand. For those who are overweight, it might elicit the sense of, ‘Oh, I need to lose weight.’ Or, ‘I don’t like to see myself because I’m so big,’ which might lead to choosing healthier food.”