Abstract
<p>Background: Reducing meat consumption and substituting red and processed meats with plant-proteins could have positive health and environmental impacts. This study examined the impact of an in-store product positioning intervention on sales of plant-based meat alternatives (PBMA) and meat-based products. Methods: Between September 2021 and January 2022, a major UK supermarket retailer implemented a product placement intervention that moved 25 chilled PBMAs from a separate dedicated PBMA bay within the meat aisle to being shelved next to their meat-based counterparts and the original dedicated PBMA bay was removed. No changes were made in control stores. To examine the effectiveness of the intervention on sales of PBMAs and meat-based products, controlled interrupted time series analysis was conducted using 538 days of sales data from 6 intervention stores and 6 matched control stores. Results: Overall, there was a significant difference between intervention and control stores in the change in sales of PBMAs attributable to the intervention (-51.18 units, 95% CI: -97.15, -5.21, indicating that positioning PBMAs next to their meat-based counterparts led to a measurable reduction in PBMA sales in intervention stores. There was no difference between the intervention and control stores in sales of other meat-free products, meat-based products, or products within the protein Eatwell category, indicating that the intervention had no measurable effect on sales of products other than the relocated PBMAs. Price-point comparison analysis revealed that PBMA products were significantly more expensive than their meat-based counterparts.Conclusion: This study revealed that positioning PBMAs next to their meat-based counterparts was not effective at increasing sales of PBMAs and in fact led to a significant reduction in sales of the repositioned PBMAs. The reduction observed may have resulted from regular PBMA customers not being able to find the relocated PBMAs or from the higher price of PBMAs compared to their meat-based counterparts or both. Future research in real-world settings is needed to better understand the behavioural levers that encourage customers towards healthier and more sustainable purchases. Future research should also examine whether placement-based interventions, such as dual-placement coupled with price promotions, can support meaningful behavioural shifts towards more sustainable choices.</p>