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https://doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.37.10.04Exploring sales data during a healthy corner storeintervention in Toronto: the Food Retail EnvironmentsShaping Health (FRESH) projectLeia M. Minaker, PhD (1); Meghan Lynch, PhD (2); Brian E. Cook, PhD (3); Catherine L. Mah, MD, PhD (2,4)This article has been peer reviewed.Tweet this articleAbstractIntroduction: Population health interventions in the retail food environment, such ascorner store interventions, aim to influence the kind of cues consumers receive so thatthey are more often directed toward healthier options. Research that addresses financialaspects of retail interventions, particularly using outcome measures such as store salesthat are central to retail decision making, is limited. This study explored store sales overtime and across product categories during a healthy corner store intervention in a lowincome neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario.Methods: Sales data (from August 2014 to April 2015) were aggregated by product category and by day. We used Microsoft Excel pivot tables to summarize and visually present sales data. We conducted t-tests to examine differences in product category sales by“peak” versus “nonpeak” sales days.Results: Overall store sales peaked on the days at the end of each month, aligned withthe issuing of social assistance payments. Revenue spikes on peak sales days weredriven predominantly by transit pass sales. On peak sales days, mean sales of nonnutritious snacks and cigarettes were marginally higher than on other days of the month.Finally, creative strategies to increase sales of fresh vegetables and fruits seemed tosubstantially increase revenue from these product categories.Conclusion: Store sales data is an important store-level metric of food environmentintervention success. Furthermore, data-driven decision making by retailers can beimportant for tailoring interventions. Future interventions and research should considerpartnerships and additional success metrics for retail food environment interventions indiverse Canadian contexts.Keywords: retail food environment, population health intervention, sales data, conven ience storesIntroductionRetail food environment interventions instores (e.g. grocery store and corner storeinterventions) are increasingly recognizedas important public health interventionsto improve the nutritional quality of foodpurchases.1-4 Such interventions aim tosupport healthier dietary behaviours byimproving access to and availability ofaffordable, nutritious food options in thecommunity and consumer nutrition environments.5,6 Food stores are especiallyimportant sites for healthy eating interventions, since over 70 cents of everyhousehold food dollar is spent in stores(as opposed to restaurants).7Food sales data have been proposed as val uable, objective, cost-efficient and unobtrusiveHighlights Public health practitioners interested in retail food environmentinterventions can use sales data toinform comprehensive evaluations. Sales data can be used to tailorhealthy corner store interventions tothe local context (for example, special promotions on peak sales days). Using sales data is important forresearch and also for store owners,who can use sales data metrics toinform their own business practices.measures of diet-related behaviour thatplace no burden on individual participants.8 Store sales data (e.g. directly collected checkout scanner data, commerciallyavailable data sets and grocery receipts)have been used to monitor the effectiveness of interventions in a variety of typesof retail food stores,9-12 including a numberof recent small-store studies.13-17 Together,these studies suggest that sales data canactually be used in the design of retailfood interventions. For example, Fosterand colleagues9 found that low-cost strategies focussed on improving product availability and placement enhanced sales ofsome foods and beverage categories (milk,water, frozen meals) but not others (regular soda, diet soda, cereal).A recent systematic review of the effectiveness of supermarket interventionsaimed at improving the healthiness ofconsumer purchases found that of 49 relevant studies identified, none reported onthe economic or financial effects of theAuthor references:1. School of Planning, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada2. Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada3. Toronto Food Strategy, Toronto Public Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada4. Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CanadaCorrespondence: Leia M. Minaker, School of Planning, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave., W., Waterloo, ON N2L3G1; Tel: 519-888-4567 ext. 35615;Email: lminaker@uwaterloo.caHealth Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in CanadaResearch, Policy and Practice342Vol 37, No 10, October 2017

intervention on the retailer.4 A 2012 narrative review of grocery marketing strategiesaimed at improving diet found that only 5of 125 reviewed studies used sales data toevaluate impacts of diverse strategies.3Another 2012 review that examined impactsof retail interventions in small food storesfound the majority of studies (11 of 16evaluations) did not analyze sales data.2Only a few studies have used sales data toassess retail performance of the store asthe primary outcome of interest.18 Thereare many reasons why previous researchhas not used sales data, including thepotentially sensitive nature of the data,and its poor quality due to human error ortechnological barriers. However, the lackof published sales outcomes remains asignificant gap in this body of research,because even if well-designed retail foodenvironment interventions can successfully improve dietary behaviours in thepopulation, the population-level impactwill not be sustained unless the intervention’s effects align with retailers’ economic goals.Given the importance of economic data todecision making in retail settings, treatingsales data as an important metric in retailfood environment intervention evaluationis crucial for both implementation andintervention sustainability.4 Within theretail sector, smaller stores have reducedcapacity to engage in data-driven decisionmaking. Evaluating sales may increase thepotential to promote healthy retailinginterventions among a diversity of foodretailers,19 especially given store ownerconcerns about potential revenue loss.20,21Indeed, lack of sales data from previousstudies may act as a barrier to other storesadopting healthy food interventions. Inaddition to retailers, this type of information is also important for legislators whoare considering how to craft policies tosupport healthy food environments inCanadian jurisdictions.22The objective of the current study was tocharacterize store sales over time over thecourse of a healthy food retailing intervention in a low-income, urban neighbourhood. We examined food and beveragesales, as well as sales in several nonfoodproduct categories. We present nonfoodproduct category sales in this article toprovide context in terms of potential risksand opportunities small retailers facewhen they implement a healthy food retailintervention.Vol 37, No 10, October 2017MethodsThe Food Retail Environments ShapingHealth (FRESH) study was funded by thePublic Health Agency of Canada, led byToronto Food Strategy (an initiative ofToronto Public Health) and collected datafrom August 2014 to April 2015. TheFRESH study used mixed methods toassess individual-level dietary and foodsecurity impacts of a pilot healthy cornerstore intervention and a mobile good foodmarket intervention (a retrofitted city busthat distributed and sold fresh vegetablesand fruits to neighbourhoods with lowgrocery store access) in two low-incomeneighbourhoods in Toronto, Ontario. Thisarticle reports on sales data from the corner store that participated in the healthycorner store intervention. Unfortunately,sales data from the mobile good food market were of poor quality and thereforeunreportable.SettingThe neighbourhood in which the intervention corner store was situated was inScarborough East – Ward 43 in Toronto,Ontario, a ward in which 42% of residentslive in apartment buildings with morethan five stories, 52% of residents wereborn outside of Canada, 57% of residentsspeak English as a first language and average annual household income is roughly 20 000 less than the Toronto average.23,24The intervention corner store was situatedin the heart of Scarborough East, on themain floor of an apartment tower complex. The site was identified by TorontoFood Strategy in partnership with EastScarborough Storefront, a community organ ization aiming to support people andbuild community in Scarborough East. Weapproached storeowners to participate,and they became active participants in allintervention decisions and in sales datacollection. Unpublished data from thebroader FRESH study (which includedsurveys with n 199 residents who wereprimary food shoppers and lived in theintervention apartment tower) showedthat among residents of the apartmenttower complex in which the store waslocated, 83.3% were born outside Canada,69% had at least one child and 78% hadannual household incomes below 30 000.InterventionThe transformation of the conveniencestore pilot site was an iterative process343encompassing (1) business fundamentals,including food procurement, infrastructure and sales analytics; (2) customer service and engagement; and (3) variousmerchandising strategies. Key goals of theintervention were to improve supplierrelationships and merchandising toincrease availability and prominence ofnutritious foods and beverages. In thisintervention, “nutritious foods and beverages” were considered those that alignedwith Canada’s Food Guide recommendations. In collaboration with public healthdietitians from Toronto Public Health andwith the store owners, we identified specific nutritious foods and beverages to besold (e.g. fresh whole fruits and vegetables, water, popcorn, low-sugar granolabars, snack packs of vegetables). Weintroduced and promoted nutritious foodsover the course of the intervention.Nutritious items were priced competitively with comparable products at thenearby discount supermarket (approximately 1 km away). The initial recruitment of the corner store took place inDecember 2013; the infrastructure changesto support the sale of fresh produce, suchas purchasing and installing new refrigeration units and changes to existing shelving, happened between June 2014 andFebruary 2015; and fresh produce beganto be offered for sale in June 2014.To increase the store’s year-round freshfruit and vegetable supply, Toronto FoodStrategy connected store owners with aToronto-based fruit and vegetable distributor. Toronto Food Strategy helped storeowners open an account, and trainedthem in the ordering process. The storeowners also procured fruits and vegetables from a nearby local Asian supermarket. Members of the research team visitedthe store between one and three times perweek throughout the intervention to provide ongoing support, including trainingon sales data collection through the pointof-sale (POS) system (described below).Of relevance to this study was the factthat the apartment tower’s residentiallandlord company had its own ongoingfree snack program available every schoolday to all children living in the apartmenttower. Every week, the landlords purchased fresh produce for the snack program from a nearby warehouse-style clubstore to distribute to school children. InNovember 2014, the store owners successfully negotiated with the landlords toHealth Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in CanadaResearch, Policy and Practice