Grocery store sales are lower than recommended for healthier food items. Our goal is transform retail settings into places that promote health for consumers.
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.
The California city of Perris will become the second municipality in the country to pass an ordinance improving the nutritional quality of the foods and beverages sold at supermarket check-out aisles.
In the United States, children and adults consume more calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods and beverages, and fewer fruits, vegetables, and whole grains than recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which aim to optimize health and reduce the risk of diet-related chronic disease.
The food retail environment is an important driver of dietary choices. Consumers acquire three times more calories from supermarkets and other grocery retailers than from away-from-home sources, such as restaurants and schools.
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.
We conducted a national study to find out how shoppers with limited resources use dollar stores, their perceptions of dollar stores, and identify opportunities for dollar stores to improve the health of their customers and communities. A full report of this study and its findings is forthcoming.
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.
The National Strategy, released in advance of Wednesday’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, represents a significant step forward in the nation’s ongoing battle against food insecurity and diet-related disease. CSPI is thrilled to see several of our highest priorities, encapsulated in our July 15 letter to President Biden, included in the Strategy.
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.
It’s time for New Yorkers to know exactly how much added sugars are lurking in the meals we consume at chain restaurants. We need the Sweet Truth Act so that New Yorkers will be able to see at a glance whether the drink, dessert, entrée, or side dish they’re about to order has more than a day’s worth of added sugars.
