This toolkit is specifically designed to support your efforts to improve the retail food environment in your community through policy interventions at the state and local level.
There are two model ordinances in this document. The first ordinance creates healthy checkout aisles. The second ordinance keeps soda in the aisle rather than the checkout and numerous other locations in grocery stores. These policies can be modified to meet your locality’s unique needs, but please note that changes should be made with guidance from a lawyer. Also note that citations in the Findings section are for advocates’ reference but are generally not included in codes and should be removed in the final version of your legislation.
Healthy Checkout refers to efforts to improve the nutrition in the food and beverage products sold in areas where shoppers stand in line to purchase their groceries. It is a strategy that changes the shopping environment to make it easier for customers and their children to avoid both marketing and impulse purchases of sugary drinks and snacks high in sugar and salt.
SNAP helps to reduce poverty, food insecurity, health care expenditures, and the risk of chronic conditions later in life. More than 250,000 retailers participate in the program across the country, with SNAP sales representing approximately nine percent of grocery sales industry-wide.
CSPI and numerous other public health organizations and professionals urge the FTC to study 1. marketing expenditures by food and beverage companies to children and adolescents and 2. slotting fees, trade spend and other trade promotion practices in the retail grocery industry.
Recently, the federal government requested that companies hand over confidential, multi-million-dollar contracts to assess potential harms to American consumers. This is not the ending to the newest spy movie. This is the beginning of the newest investigation into the grocery industry.
Long before the current concerns about supply chain disruption, CSPI was concerned about anti-competitive practices in the grocery industry that dictate Americans’ choices and undermine our health. That’s why, in February of this year, we asked the Federal Trade Commission to use its authority under section 6(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act to launch an investigation into cooperative marketing agreements, “category captains,” and other trade promotion practices common in the grocery industry.
