A Model Depicting the Retail Food Environment and Customer Interactions: Components, Outcomes, and Future Directions

Abstract

The retail food environment (RFE) has important implications for dietary intake and health, and dramatic changes in RFEs have been observed over the past few decades and years. Prior conceptual models of the RFE and its relationships with health and behavior have played an important role in guiding research; yet, the convergence of RFE changes and scientific advances in the field suggest the time is ripe to revisit this conceptualization. In this paper, we propose the Retail Food Environment and Customer Interaction Model to convey the evolving variety of factors and relationships that convene to influence food choice at the point of purchase. The model details specific components of the RFE, including business approaches, actors, sources, and the customer retail experience; describes individual, interpersonal, and household characteristics that affect customer purchasing; highlights the macro-level contexts (e.g., communities and nations) in which the RFE and customers behave; and addresses the wide-ranging outcomes produced by RFEs and customers, including: population health, food security, food justice, environmental sustainability, and business sustainability. We believe the proposed conceptualization helps to (1) provide broad implications for future research and (2) further highlight the need for transdisciplinary collaborations to ultimately improve a range of critical population outcomes.

Keywords: dietary intake; environment; food purchasing behavior; grocery store; restaurant; retail.

Figure 1

Retail Food Environment and Customer Interaction Model. The retail food environment consists of retail sources, retail actors, and business models that influence the customer retail experience. Customers involve individual, interpersonal, and household characteristics that affect customer purchasing and thus the retail sales of foods and beverages. Both the retail food environment and customers and their households are embedded in macro-level contexts (e.g., communities and nations), and as a result of the interactions and dynamics among these multiple model components, a host of population outcomes are produced: health, food security, food justice, environmental sustainability, and business sustainability. Definitions for model components are provided in Table 1.

Figure 2

Common and Emerging Retail Food Sources across Two Dimensions of Customer Convenience: Accessibility and Degree of Required Preparation. Accessibility involves the ability for customers to obtain food products from a retail source from their immediate location (e.g., food can be delivered to their location or customers are required to travel to source). Degree of required preparation captures the typical proportion of products offered by the source that is prepared: ready-to-eat versus unprepared.