Similar concerns apply to thin subsidies (lowering the price of healthier products). To date only a couple of experimental studies examining these types of strategies in retail environments are available, including a New Zealand supermarket trial (Ni Mhurchu et al., selleck compound 2010) and a Dutch trial in a computerized retail

environment (Waterlander et al., 2012). Both studies found that the reduced prices of healthier foods led to higher purchases of these products. Recently, Andreyeva and colleagues published a review on the price elasticity1 of food. They concluded that food is elastic and that the highest price elasticity was found for food away from home, soft drinks, juice, meats, and fruit (Andreyeva et al., 2010). These results show that thin subsidies buy Erlotinib are promising to stimulate healthier food purchases. Nevertheless, studies also reported that discounting healthy foods leads to more calorie purchases (Epstein et al., 2010) or is counterproductive because consumers used the saved money to buy unhealthier products (Giesen et al., 2011b). Previous studies

show that both taxing and subsidizing strategies have positive (e.g., more healthy food purchases), but also potentially negative side effects (e.g., more calories, lower fruit purchases). Therefore, the best suggestion may be to combine both strategies (Ni Mhurchu, 2010, Nnoaham et al., 2009 and Powell and Chaloupka, 2009). Therefore, this study aimed to examine both single and combined effects of lowering the prices of healthier foods and (simultaneously) increasing the prices of unhealthier foods on food purchases. It is hypothesized that the most favorable nutrient purchases will be found when combining the greatest discounts on healthier foods with the greatest

tax increase on unhealthier foods. This study used a unique 3-D web-based supermarket (Fig. 1). The main features are described below; additional information can be found elsewhere (Waterlander et al., 2011). The web-based and supermarket was designed in the image of an existent branch of the Dutch market leader supermarket. Photographs of genuine products were used to compose product images and prices were made available through shelf labeling. Food prices were based on the prices of the two Dutch market leaders, and the stock was also based on an existing supermarket. It was decided to create a representative product selection based on the 38 different food categories as used on the website of the market leader supermarket (Albert Heijn Online Shop, 2010). Within each product category, a sample representing around 10% of the regular assortment was selected by choosing popular and frequently consumed products. In total, the web-based supermarket contained 512 different food products modeling the actual distribution of store products and categories (Table 1). The stock did not take in specific brands or different package sizes.