Out-of-home food selection behaviour in the presence and absence of price-based incentives in a virtual food delivery app: a randomised controlled trial

IF 3.8 2区医学 Q1 BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Appetite Pub Date : 2025-07-12 DOI:10.1016/j.appet.2025.108228

Amy Finlay , Andrew Jones , Martin O'Flaherty , Zoé Colombet , Nick Townsend , James Garbutt , Rebecca Evans , Zoi Toumpakari , Eric Robinson

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Policies restricting price-based incentives in the out-of-home (OOH) food sector could influence food-related behaviours and improve population diet. In the present study we assessed the impact of removing price-based incentives on consumer food selection through a virtual, hypothetical, OOH delivery platform. Participants ordered a hypothetical meal for their household using a virtual ordering platform which presented the menu of a popular UK pizza chain restaurant/takeaway outlet. Participants were randomly allocated to one of 5 experimental conditions: control (all price-based incentives present), price reductions removed (e.g., 25 % off when you spend £10), value pricing removed (product size increase for a disproportionately small price increase), bulk-buy reductions removed (meal deals at discounted prices), and all price-based incentives removed. We examined the impact of removing each of the price-based incentives individually and simultaneously on hypothetical food purchases (energy selected (kcal) and money spent). There was a main effect of price-based incentive experimental condition on energy selected (F(4, 1919) = 3.51, p = .007) and money spent (F(4,1919) = 163.48, p < .001) and there was no evidence that effects of removing price-based incentives differed by participant characteristics. Participants in the control condition had a significantly lower hypothetical spend than all other conditions. Kcal selected tended to be lower in the all price-based incentives removed condition compared to the control condition (−7 %) and other conditions (average −8 %), although only the difference between all price-based incentives removed and value pricing removed conditions reached pre-specified statistical significance (−364 kcal; p < .0125; d = 0.21). Bayes Factors indicated that for all other pairwise comparisons the data did not provide strong evidence to support either the presence or absence of an effect. Therefore, further research is necessary to assess the impact of removing price-based incentives in OOH food settings.

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在虚拟送餐应用中，有和没有基于价格的激励的外出食物选择行为：一项随机对照试验。

限制户外食品部门以价格为基础的激励措施的政策可以影响与食品有关的行为并改善人口饮食。在本研究中，我们通过一个虚拟的、假设的户外配送平台，评估了取消基于价格的激励对消费者食品选择的影响。参与者使用虚拟订餐平台为他们的家庭订餐，该平台提供了英国一家受欢迎的披萨连锁店/外卖店的菜单。参与者被随机分配到5个实验条件中的一个：控制（所有基于价格的激励都存在），取消降价（例如，当你花10英镑时，可以享受25%的折扣），取消价值定价（以不成比例的小价格增加产品尺寸），取消批量购买折扣（以折扣价用餐），以及取消所有基于价格的激励。我们研究了单独和同时取消每一种基于价格的激励对假设的食品购买（选择的能量（千卡）和花费的金钱）的影响。价格激励实验条件对能源选择（F(4,1919)= 3.51, p=.007）和金钱支出(F(4,1919)=163.48, p

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来源期刊

Appetite 医学-行为科学

CiteScore

9.10

自引率

11.10%

发文量

566

审稿时长

13.4 weeks

期刊介绍： Appetite is an international research journal specializing in cultural, social, psychological, sensory and physiological influences on the selection and intake of foods and drinks. It covers normal and disordered eating and drinking and welcomes studies of both human and non-human animal behaviour toward food. Appetite publishes research reports, reviews and commentaries. Thematic special issues appear regularly. From time to time the journal carries abstracts from professional meetings. Submissions to Appetite are expected to be based primarily on observations directly related to the selection and intake of foods and drinks; papers that are primarily focused on topics such as nutrition or obesity will not be considered unless they specifically make a novel scientific contribution to the understanding of appetite in line with the journal's aims and scope.