Background: Retailers have the capacity to improve the food and beverage environment by making healthier options more affordable and attractive for their consumers. One barrier to the implementation of effective health-promoting food and beverage pricing strategies is a lack of knowledge on retailers’ perceptions of such pricing initiatives.
The aim of this study was to understand retailers’ perceptions of factors that are relevant to feasible and acceptable health-promoting food and beverage pricing interventions.
Methods: A convenience sample of 11 aquatic and recreation centre managers in Victoria, Australia was recruited to participate in semi-structured interviews. We took a pragmatic approach with the aim of understanding retailers’ perceptions of factors that affect the feasibility and acceptability of developing and implementing health-promoting food and beverage pricing interventions within their facilities. Thematic analysis was used to synthesise retailers’ perceptions of pricing interventions.
Results: Key themes identified were: structural and organisational characteristics (both internal and external characteristics of aquatic and recreation centres), drivers of feasible pricing changes (type, magnitude and products targeted by pricing strategies) and business outcomes (profits and customer feedback).
Conclusions: Results suggest that pricing interventions to promote healthy food and beverage choices can be feasible and acceptable to retailers, though contextual considerations are likely to be important. Future studies should use these findings to design interventions most likely to be acceptable to retailers, work with retailers to implement health-promoting food and beverage pricing interventions, evaluate the impact on business outcomes including customer perspectives and profitability, and test transferability to other retail settings.