How the layout of grocery stores impacts nutrition
Design affects and influences us on a daily basis but were rarely aware of it. Wether it’s graphic design, industrial design, digital product design, service design or spacial design to name a few — design is everywhere.
But since most people don’t have the time (or frankly the interest) to think about how this actually impacts us, our behaviors can easily be affected by how the world around us is designed.
Grocery stores are no exception.
Background
Grocery store strategies have been well studied, exposing common methods such as utilizing shelf levels, lighting and layout. With economic motivation, they aim to impact customers financially (aka stores want you to spend as much money as possible).
In an effort to diverge from more saturated research and public discussions, I decided to not focus on the financial impact of grocery store layouts. I’ve personally been very interested in science based knowledge about nutrition for years now since diet is crucial to our present and future general wellbeing.
This is why I’ll be looking at the nutritional patterns of grocery store layouts.
Objective
In this brief data collection, visualization and design reflection project my objectives are:
- Analyze spacial distribution of nutritional value in grocery stores
- Compare store layouts of branches with different customer bases
- Initiate cause and effect analysis of students’ unhealthy diets
This project is merely a starting point to reflect on the health and indirect economic impact of spatial nutritional distribution in grocery stores.
Setting
Alepa is a grocery shop chain in the Greater Helsinki region of Finland and is currently part of the nationwide cooperative S Group. Alepas are generally smaller in size and viewed as one of the cheaper grocery stores in Finland.
I will be looking at the following branches:
Kamppi
- Area: Centrally located, popular area
- Location: Mall with busy bus terminal
- Main customers: Travelers, people in the mall
Keilaniemi
- Area: Office district, close to residential area
- Location: Central in office and recreational district
- Main customers: Office workers, residents
Otaniemi
- Area: Main campus of Aalto University
- Location: Very central on campus
- Main customers: Students
Methodology
I combined quantifiable data with qualitative context being a student and knowing the Alepa on campus like the back of my hand.
Spatial nutritional distribution
I assessed nutritional value based on research and methods of respected physicians, nutritional scientists and registered dietitians.
(You can find the most influential references here or at the end of the blog post.)
Nutritional value isn’t a simple static value as the context is much more important. Instead of classifying something as nutritionally bad, for example, it should rather be seen as something to consume less often.
I categorized the nutritional value by shelf sections, grouping and assessing similar items to give a more effective overview. However, this means that there might be slight inaccuracies since nutritional value of items in the same category can still contrast each other.
Cause and effect of students’ nutritional lifestyles
Throughout this project, I kept thinking about the cause and effect of especially students’ poor nutrition. With the limited time and resources, I wasn’t able to fully investigate this but rather get an initial idea of the situation and start a discussion.
So I conducted a survey asking university students 3 simple questions with.
- What types of snacks do you buy at Alepa? (If you get your actual groceries there, please exclude them)
- How would you feel if Alepa no longer offered “unhealthy snacks”? (unhealthy is open to your definition)
(This is part of growth hacking to initially investigate customer loyalty.) - If Alepa no longer offered unhealthy snacks, do you think you would go out of your way to find them somewhere else or just stick to more healthy options?
This survey is obviously extremely surface level and it that way somewhat insufficient. It helps to get an initial idea of the situation though and sparks further questions.
(You can find more interesting research about the cause and effect of “poor” nutrition in this podcast episode and it’s references.)
Outcome
Unfortunately, coming to a confident conclusion after this project would dangerously overestimate the comprehensiveness of the collected data.
This very compact project definitely achieved its goal — as it was just meant as a starting point to possibly further reflect and investigate.
Further development
This project sparked many new interesting questions surrounding the topic that I’d love to explore. The questions have some design influences but also a lot of deeper economic questions I’m very interested in.
- How do grocery store layouts actually impact what people buy?
- How are diets impacted by grocery store layouts?
- What paths do people take in grocery stores?
- How does their path correlate to their purchases and diet?
- How does the spacial design and atmosphere of grocery stores impact purchases and diet?
- How does a better diet (in student years) impact the economy long term?
- How do different settings (e.g. different countries) that have different nutritional standards compare in economic performance? What effect do grocery stores and their design have on the nutritional standards?
- How can one effectively incentivize a better diet? What role does (grocery store) design play in this?
- How can one educate people on the contents and benefits of a balanced and nutritious diet? Can this reverse influences of surrounding environments and influences growing up?
