Evaluation of consumer transactions as a source of dietary consumption information
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Sch of Geography
Abstract
This project will compare a method of self-reported dietary assessment, which is often subject to reporting bias, with and arguably objective measure of food purchasing records from consumer transactions on store loyalty cards.
There will be a strong methodological focus to the project using the two data sources to better understand patterns in dietary behaviours and assessing how well the two data sources agree in different subgroups of the population. There will be a primary data collection component which will involve recruiting a group of participants to complete multiple 24h dietary recalls to allow us to compare this measure of habitual diet, with one derived from their loyalty card transactions. Diet data will be collected using the new 24h online tool, myfood24.
There will be a strong methodological focus to the project using the two data sources to better understand patterns in dietary behaviours and assessing how well the two data sources agree in different subgroups of the population. There will be a primary data collection component which will involve recruiting a group of participants to complete multiple 24h dietary recalls to allow us to compare this measure of habitual diet, with one derived from their loyalty card transactions. Diet data will be collected using the new 24h online tool, myfood24.
Publications
Oldroyd RA
(2021)
Progress Towards Using Linked Population-Based Data For Geohealth Research: Comparisons Of Aotearoa New Zealand And The United Kingdom.
in Applied spatial analysis and policy
Clark SD
(2021)
Dietary Patterns Derived from UK Supermarket Transaction Data with Nutrient and Socioeconomic Profiles.
in Nutrients
Jenneson V
(2021)
Exploring the Geographic Variation in Fruit and Vegetable Purchasing Behaviour Using Supermarket Transaction Data.
in Nutrients
Jenneson V
(2021)
Data considerations for the success of policy to restrict in-store food promotions: A commentary from a food industry nutritionist consultation
in Nutrition Bulletin
Jenneson VL
(2022)
A systematic review of supermarket automated electronic sales data for population dietary surveillance.
in Nutrition reviews
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES/R501062/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2021 | |||
| 1944747 | Studentship | ES/R501062/1 | 01/10/2017 | 31/01/2022 | Victoria Jenneson |
| ES/P000401/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2024 | |||
| 1944747 | Studentship | ES/P000401/1 | 01/10/2017 | 31/01/2022 | Victoria Jenneson |
| Description | Dietary purchase patterns vary by small area geography. Even within a single city, there is substantial variation in the fruit and vegetable purchasing patterns of the populations according to retailer data from a single store. A difference was observed according to Output Area Classification, with people in more deprived urban areas purchasing fewer fruit and vegetables than those in less deprived suburban and rural areas. |
| Exploitation Route | The findings reveal spatial and sociodemographic inequalities in diet which may be used to inform policy to improve the accessibility and affordability of healthy diets within the populations most in need. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Healthcare,Retail |
| URL | http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/148635/ |
| Description | Paper of HFSS promotions feasibility challenges has led to secondment to support National Food Strategy team within Defra with modelling of potential taxation strategies. Findings from this work will be used to inform recommendations around future policy in the UK. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Secondment to National Food Strategy team (Defra), modelling potential food taxation strategies to improve public health and dietary sustainability. To inform recommendations for NFS part 2 report which will be developed in a Government White Paper. |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy funding |
| Amount | £510 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2019 |
| End | 07/2019 |
| Description | Leeds for Life Conference Award |
| Amount | £400 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2019 |
| End | 07/2019 |
| Description | Sainsbury's LIDA Strategic Partnership |
| Organisation | Sainsbury's |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | This collaboration uses retail transaction data to investigate dietary patterns that are associated with health and sustainability outcomes. My team have contributed both nutrition and data science expertise to this work. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partners have contributed data and understanding of these data, alongside working knowledge of the business. |
| Impact | Our research has contributed to Sainsbury's approach to promoting healthy and sustainable diets as part of their carbon net zero 2040 targets. Conference publications have been delivered and academic results papers are forthcoming, |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Secondment to National Food Strategy Team at Defra |
| Organisation | Department For Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (DEFRA) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Undertaking 4 month secondment with Defra National Food Strategy team to model potential taxation strategies to improve population diet in terms of health and sustainability outputs. Supported my Dr Michelle Morris in an advisory capacity. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Supervision of the project including expertise in policy, environmental sustainability and networking with expert advisors and industry stakeholders. Defra also provided financial support through payment of researcher salary during secondment period. |
| Impact | Activity is still ongoing. Results will feed into recommendations within part 2 of the National Food Strategy report. These will be developed into a Government White Paper, committing policy actions. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | UK Supermarket Retailer |
| Organisation | Sainsbury's |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The research outputs provided by myself and the research team provide valuable insight to the retailers about the purchase habits of their customers from a nutritional perspective. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The retailer provides match-funding for the PhD project as well as transaction data used in the analysis. The partner also allows controlled access to a sub-sample of their customers as research participants. In doing so, the retailer undertakes population sampling and provides insight into the data provided in the form of meta-data. The retailer also provided additional funding to enable Victoria Jenneson to attend the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS) 2019 conference in Dublin, Ireland to present two posters with findings from the collaboration. |
| Impact | The collaboration has led to a strengthening partnership between the retailer and the University of Leeds which has already resulted in additional research projects between the partners, with further potential in the pipeline. The collaboration is a multi-disciplinary partnership bringing together food retail and academia in the fields of nutrition, public health and geography. So far, this has resulted in two poster publications which were presented at FENS 2019. The retailer hopes to use the findings of the work from this partnership to improve its offering of healthy, affordable food which will in turn promote public health nutrition benefits. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Attendance at the UK Nutrition Research Partnership forum on Advancing Dietary Intake Assessment |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Attendance at a virtual forum to discuss the fundamental challenges to dietary intake assessment research methods. I increased awareness of the potential utility of supermarket loyalty card transaction data as a source dietary monitoring, this sparked discussion of how novel data sources can be used to compliment more traditional dietary assessment methods. The forum aimed to develop a network of researchers committed to improving dietary assessment. I have agreed to participate in further workshops, and the outputs will be published in a UK Nutrition journal. Networking at the event also led to follow up discussions with researchers at the Quadram Institute about the need for open dietary data, including product nutritional information, for the implementation and monitoring of policy. There is potential for this to lead to further collaboration with the Quadram Institute. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Data Science Perspectives (Turing conference) - Restricting price and location-based food promotions: an algorithmic approach to apply Nutrient Profiling across the retail product portfolio |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This poster presentation was delivered to an interdisciplinary data science audience and demonstrated how data science han be applied to tackle real world challenges that impact multiple businesses and third sectors in addition to the public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Development of policy briefing paper around data challenges to implementing HFSS promotions legislation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Policy brief outlining data-related challenges to implementing, enforcing and monitoring new legislation to restrict HFSS food promotions in England. Sets out recommendations for action for improving the effectiveness of policy on public health. The policy briefing document has been shared on twitter by @policyleeds, and on LinkedIn, where is has received attention from food industry representatives sparking further engagement. The brief has also been shared with network contacts from the food industry, industry representative bodies, government organisations and academics. It led to an invitation to speak at a seminar with researchers at the University of Oxford. It also led to a 4-month secondment with the National Food Strategy Team at Defra, working on modelling for potential taxation strategies to improve population diets. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/167285/ |
| Description | European Nutrition Society FENS - poster presentation: Variation in fruit and vegetable purchasing patterns in Leeds: using novel loyalty card transaction data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Poster presentation of collaborative work with Sainsbury's. This was shared at an international conference that attracts nutrition delegates from all sectors. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/events/696/program-app/submission/139470 |
| Description | European Nutrition Society FENS Poster presentation: Compliance with the Eatwell guide: a case study using supermarket transaction records in Yorkshire and the Humber |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Poster presentation at an international conference that is attended by nutritionists from all sectors. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/events/696/program-app/submission/139482 |
| Description | Food and Drink Sector Council Nutrition Working Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | I have been invited to participate in the Food and Drink Sector Council Nutrition working group. At a meeting in February I presented possible options for data sharing across the food sector to contribute towards digitising the food system and informing the National food strategy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Presentation at eICDAM (International Conference on Diet and Activity Methods) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Delivery of an online presentation on the data-related challenges to feasibility of implementing new legislation to restrict HFSS product promotions in store. The presentation highlighted a mis-match between the data needed to apply the UK Nutrient Profiling Model and the data available to retailers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Sainsbury's Sustainability conference: launching carbon net zero targets |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to attend this conference hosted by Sainsbury's as some of our work was used to inform their carbon net zero 2030 strategy. I had some engaging discussions on the nutrition team stand during the networking elements of the conference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Talk delivered at Turing Institute Urban Analytics monthly seminar about the importance of data for policy-making |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Delivered a presentation to academics and business representative as part of the Urban Analytics network at the Alan Turing Institute. The talk covered data-related challenges to implementation of new policy to restrict HFSS food promotions in store by location and price, under the UK Nutrient Profiling Model. It highlighted complexities of the model and a mis-match between data needed to apply the model and data available to retailers. The talk enforced the importance of aligning policy with the data landscape for effective implementation and monitoring. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | University of Leeds Be Curious Public Engagement Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Activities stand discussing the use of data to make the world a better place. Activities aimed at children and their parents which sparked discussion around the ethics for data access and security. In general members of the pubic were supportive of beneficial data uses but wanted transparency and consent. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
| Description | What does supermarket loyalty card data reveal about food purchase behaviours? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This blog article summarises the work presented at the FENS conference. It is an accessible format for the general public and industrial partners to access and understand our research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2019 |
| URL | https://www.cdrc.ac.uk/news-archive/what-does-supermarket-loyalty-card-data-reveal-about-food-purcha... |
| Description | Workshop with DEFRA regarding digitising the food system |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This meeting/workshop involved members of the Food and Drink teams at DEFRA and collaborators from Sainsbury's. Animated discussions took place about how more novel sources of data could be made available for research and policy makers to better understand the food system. Follow on projects are planned. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Workshop: Connecting LIDA and Retailer expertise |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This workshop showcased collaborative research between the University of Leeds and Sainsbury's. Engaging discussions took place and plans for future work made. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |