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Improving diet quality has been a major target of public health policy. Governments have encouraged consumers to make healthier food choices and firms to reformulate food products. Evaluation of such policies has focused on the impact on consumer behaviour; firm behaviour has been less well studied. We study the recent decline in dietary salt intake in the UK, and show that it was entirely attributable to product reformulation by firms; a contemporaneous information campaign had little impact, consumer switching between products in fact worked in the opposite direction and led to a slight increase in the salt intensity of groceries purchased. These findings point to the important role that firms can play in achieving public policy goals.
Authors
CPP Co-Director, IFS Research Director
Rachel is Research Director and Professor at the University of Manchester. She was made a Dame for services to economic policy and education in 2021.
Research Fellow University of Wisconsin
Martin, previously Deputy Research Director, is a Research Fellow at IFS and Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin.
Research Fellow London School of Economics
Kate is an IFS Research Fellow and an Assistant Professor at LSE, interested in public finance, industrial organisation and applied microeconomics.
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2014.1415
- Publisher
- Institute for Fiscal Studies
Suggested citation
R, Griffith and M, O'Connell and K, Smith. (2014). The importance of product reformulation versus consumer choice in improving diet quality. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/importance-product-reformulation-versus-consumer-choice-improving-diet-quality (accessed: 24 April 2024).
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