Groceries Online - Eating, Acquisitions, & Technology (GO-EAT): Identifying opportunities to support healthy food and beverage purchasing decisions

Healthy diets are important for the prevention of chronic diseases and the maintenance of health. Retail food environments, like grocery stores, can shape the types of food that we buy and eat. Our food choices can also be influenced by retailers and their practices related to in-store marketing or promotions. Shopping online for groceries has become popular with COVID-19, and it is likely a trend that is here to stay beyond the pandemic. However, physical and virtual grocery stores are not built the same. With online grocery stores, web designers and tech companies may now also play a key role in impacting our food choices. Therefore, it is essential that we gain a better understanding of how online grocery shopping environments contribute to our food and beverage purchasing decisions. To address this research question, the proposed project will comprise of three parts. For part one, we will review the existing evidence on features of online grocery stores known to affect food and beverage purchasing decisions. In part two, we will interview web designers to explore how they might influence us through the websites that they create. During part three, we will interview and follow shoppers as they go about their typical routine to see how their online grocery purchasing decisions relate to what they eat. By combining our findings from these three parts, we will form a better understanding of the roles and impacts of online grocery shopping environments so our policy makers and health promoters can take advantage of technology to support healthy food and beverage purchases.