Grocery Shopping under Cognitive Constraints and Restrictive Budget: An Algorithmic Approach

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithmic approach to optimize the grocery shopping behaviour of consumers under specific circumstances: a highly restrictive budget and cognitive constraints. I develop a formal optimization model that accounts for the trade-off between dietary objectives and product preferences during the shopping process. I show how a heuristic algorithm and its implementation in an interactive web platform can be used to find local optima to a consumer’s choice problem, by alleviating the burden from limited processing capacity, especially overchoice. The approach presented in this paper has implications for retailers and policymakers as it points to concrete actions to enhance dietary imbalances and potential underconsumption experienced by low-income and cognitively constrained individuals. I discuss a specific use case of the algorithm for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.