INFORMS Open Forum

BALTIMORE, MD, June 9, 2023 – A new study of food consumer shopping behaviors has found that when faced with a choice – lower prices or healthier foods – they will likely choose lower prices.

Click here to read the full press release.

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Ashley Smith
Public Relations Specialist
INFORMS Public Affairs Coordinator
Baltimore MD
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The key point within the article is with incentives folks will choose healthier food.  When purchase food with limited income and limited places to go to by food, your near term priority is less cost.  No different then large complex corporations

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Ken Fordyce
director analytics without borders
Arkieva
Wilmington DE
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It's no surprise that all things equal, the low-income participants tend to choose the cheapest option.  The healthier option also needs to be cheaper or very close to it. Ken's comment is absolutely right!  Corporations would behave the same way.

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Bruce Hartman
Professor
University of St. Francis
Tucson, AZ United States
bruce@ahartman.net
website:http://drbrucehartman.net/brucewebsite/
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It would be nice to see if there's a certain price difference between lower price food items and the healthier alternative where consumers begin to choose the healthier alternative. For example, on a loaf of bread, is it $1 or $0.05? Some indication on where the healthier price point needs to be.

I'm also thinking that a healthier choice can mean a healthier overall cart of groceries. Are there more fruits and veggies in the cart or more carbs (e.g., bread)? A balanced diet that is healthier in the aggregate for the consumer might be more important than them choosing a healthier loaf of bread, but having a diet with too many carbs. 

Lots of complexities!

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Aaron Hussey
Founder & CEO
Integral Analytics, LLC
Concord NC
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Let's think about this. People who have to think about price vs health are likely to have other major money related issues, such as child care, rent, working two part time jobs, their health, discrimination, and etc…. The one money thing that comes close to their control is being hungry or not.  They likely cannot control rent. Income is based on the hours they work. Child care varies. Government assistance is getting harder to get in some states. If buying cheap food would release the other money related pressure, they yes, cheap food wins all the time. This may be detrimental to their health in the future, but if you haves to decide on being unhealthy now or living in the street tomorrow, we high one would you pick?

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Michael Washington, PhD
Industrial Engineer/Epidemiologist
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Pretoria, South Africa
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I gather from the study that healthy food is a luxury good. Families with more money tend to lean towards healthy food over price. Low-income families do not have that choice.

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Andrew Acosta
Data Scientist
Milesius Capital Resources LLC
Chicago IL
andrew@acm.org
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We all know too well the hardship caused by the soaring inflation. As many are struggling to make ends meet, choosing cheaper but unhealthy food is the only option on the table, as pointed out above by others.

The topic of this paper reminds me of two similar important questions. Would providing subsidized nicotine replacement products increase smokers' chances of quitting? Would they go back to smoking once the subsidy ends?

To me, it might be too expensive to cover the cost of nicotine replacement products until smokers quit completely. On the other hand, it might be too ineffective to stop the subsidy "prematurely" and risk increasing the relapse rate.

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Vincent Tsz Fai Chow
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Email: tsz-fai.chow@polyu.edu.hk
https://tfvchow.github.io
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