Evaluating the impact of the placement regulations on the CONvenience store sector and co-creating solutions for a healthier system: ECON study

Background: Obesity and poor diet constitute two of the greatest threats to population health. The UK government introduced the Food (Promotion and Placement) regulations in England in October 2022 to support the creation of store layouts that promote healthier food purchasing. The law is complex, and exemptions and resource limitations may produce unintended economic and health consequences for convenience store owners and their customers. An in-depth independent evaluation of the new law’s effects on convenience stores, their customers and local authorities is needed to inform future policy refinement and development. Aim: To evaluate how the Food (Placement and Promotions) regulations influence food-related behaviours of customers, commercial outcomes in the convenience store sector and the burden on local authority enforcers in England and co-create multiple systemic strategies that enable convenience stores to support health and wellbeing. Public Involvement: Our project has been developed with regular convenience store customers, convenience store staff and our project partners. A member of the public and a convenience store owner are part of the research team. We will recruit two public panels each with 6 diverse members from across England who will keep our work relevant. One will be made up of convenience store customers, the other of staff. Methods: This 30-month project is structured into four interlinked workpackages (WPs). WP1 provides overarching project governance, overseeing WP linkage and public involvement and coordinating knowledge exchange activities. WP2 will provide quantitative insights into the impact the Food (Promotions and Placement) regulations using three datasets: Kantar Worldpanel household purchasing data and two primary survey datasets from national samples of 2028 convenience store owners and up to 999 local authority enforcement officers. WP3 will provide qualitative insights into the lived experiences of a diverse range of convenience store staff, suppliers, local authority staff and customers in six geographically and culturally diverse locations in England. Quantitative assessment of differences in sales of 12 target food and drink product categories, placement of these food categories in stores, and differences in customer dietary quality, between stores that must abide by the new legislation and those that are exempt will be completed. WP4 will identify strategies to increase healthy food and drink offerings across the convenience store sector focusing on policy levers at two levels: local (community systems mapping and priority setting) and national (focusing on supply chains and business support). Anticipated Impact and Dissemination: Locally, high-priority solutions will be identified in our case study communities and learnings shared with other local authorities, convenience store owners and representative bodies for customers, enforcement officers and convenience sector businesses. Nationally, new insights about the convenience store sector could identify focal points for future interventions to support healthier food and drink offerings in convenience stores. Key deliverables include: i) real-time feedback to policymakers through briefings; ii) presentations and reports to key stakeholders; iii) six community case studies; iv) ~6 academic publications; and v) blogs, infographics or videos co-created with our public researchers to make our results widely accessible.