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The Effect of Price Changes and Teaspoon Labelling on Intention to Purchase Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: A Discrete Choice Experiment

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Abstract

Introduction

Childhood obesity is a major public health concern and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a known contributor. SSB taxation and food labelling have been proposed as policies to reduce consumption by changing purchasing behaviours. The study aimed to analyse caregivers’ preferences on commonly purchased SSBs in Australia and to determine the effect of price increases and teaspoon labelling on their purchasing intentions.

Methods

We used a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to obtain data about choices between SSB and non-SSB alternatives. 563 caregivers, who had young children aged 3–7 years, completed the experiment online. 286 were randomly allocated to receive choice sets with plain labelling while 277 were assigned to teaspoon labelling. Each participant completed nine choice scenarios where they chose between six SSB and non-SSB beverage options or a no-beverage option, with beverage prices varying between scenarios. While hypothetical, price and teaspoon labelling for sugar content for each beverage was obtained from an informal market survey. Responses from the DCE were modelled using random parameters logit within a random utility theory framework. Household income and children’s consumption volumes of soft drink were used to explore preference heterogeneity.

Results

Using mixed logit as the final model, we found that higher reduction in intended purchases was observed for soft drink and fruit drink in teaspoon labelling than it was in plain labelling. Participants exposed to teaspoon labelling intended to purchase less of flavoured milk and fruit juice compared to those exposed to plain labelling. Compared to baseline prices, a hypothetical 20% increase in SSB prices and the presentation of ‘teaspoons of sugar’ labelling were predicted to reduce intentional SSB purchases and increase intentional non-SSB purchases. Within each labelling group, there were no significant differences of intentional purchases between the highest and the lowest income quintile, high and low consumers of soft drinks. However, compared to plain labelling, teaspoon labelling was predicted to strongly influence intentional purchases of SSBs and non-SSBs.

Conclusion

This study suggests that a policy to increase SSB price and include teaspoon labelling would lead to a reduced consumption of SSBs and increased consumption of non-SSBs.

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Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to constraints imposed in the Ethics process but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request subject to approval from an appropriate HREC.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Nicole Moretto from The Centre for Health Services Research and the participants of the Environments For Healthy Living study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Centre for Health Services Research, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 288 Herston Road, Herston, QLD, 4006, Australia

    Vinh Vo, K.-H. Nguyen & Tracy A. Comans

  2. Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    J. A. Whitty

  3. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Caufield East, Vic., Australia

    Vinh Vo

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Correspondence to Tracy A. Comans.

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Funding

Funding for the study was provided by the Australian National Preventative Health Agency (ANPHA). The funder had no role in the design, conduct or analysis of the study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.

Ethics approval

The survey was approved by the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee (GU Ref No: MED/32/12/HREC) and the Human Ethics Research Office, The University of Queensland, Australia (2020000329). The ethics approval covered consent to participate in the survey and to publish de-identified results from the data collected in the survey.

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The ethical approval covered consent to participate in the survey.

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The ethical approval covered consent to publish de-identified results from the data collected in the survey.

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Upon request.

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Author contributions

VV: Methodology, software, formal analysis, writing—original draft, visualization. KHN: Methodology, software, resources, writing—review and editing, supervision. JAW: Conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing. TAC: Conceptualization, methodology, software, resources, writing—review and editing, supervision.

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Vo, V., Nguyen, KH., Whitty, J.A. et al. The Effect of Price Changes and Teaspoon Labelling on Intention to Purchase Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: A Discrete Choice Experiment. Appl Health Econ Health Policy 20, 199–212 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40258-021-00688-8

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