Environmental sustainability, healthiness and cost of supermarket retailer food and non-alcoholic beverage categories: an observational analysis of retail transaction data from Yorkshire and the Humber, UK (2022)

Background Changing our food system to address the dual challenge of population and planetary health requires greater understanding of the environmental sustainability of food products, and how these interplay with healthiness and food cost. Large scale transaction data from supermarket retailers can be used to better understand these factors, and how consumer behaviours contribute to environmental footprints. Methods We used anonymised loyalty card transaction data for 2022 from a major UK supermarket retailer for customers living in the Yorkshire and the Humber region (UK) (>160 million sales). These data were linked with product-level nutrition data to derive a binary indicator of product healthiness (High Fat Salt and/or Sugar (HFSS) status). The sales data were also linked with global estimates for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), land use, water use per kg. We described environmental impacts (GHGE, land and water use, and a composite of these domains) of food categories according to the Living Costs and Food Survey categories (n = 64), operationalised as unit metrics (per kg) and sales footprints (accounting for the weight of each product sold). We explored the interplay between product healthiness, cost per kg and environmental impact using visualisation methods. Findings For the composite index, the food categories with the highest sales footprints were Beef, Cheese and Curd, Milk, Ready Meals and Chocolate. Category rankings were substantively different when operationalised as impact per kg versus sales footprints, and for GHGE, land use and water use separately. Products that were less healthy and high environmental impact per kg had a median cost per kg that was 350% higher than healthier and low impact products, but there was wide variability in food cost across all levels of healthiness and impact. Fruits and vegetables tended to have favourable profiles across healthiness, sustainability and cost domains. Interpretation Sales footprints and unit metrics (e.g. per kg) provide different lenses, which are both needed to understand the sustainability of our food system at a product level, and should be considered in data-focussed policy to drive population and planetary health. Policy should support initiatives to minimise discretionary food consumption, particularly chocolate, and increase fruit and vegetable consumption to improve both human and planetary health. Funding This work was part of the FIO-Food project, funded through the Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme, delivered by UKRI, in partnership with the Global Food Security Programme, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Defra, DHSC, OHID, Innovate UK and FSA (FIO-Food award: BB/W018021/1).