Abstract 4371743: Rethinking Healthy Grocery Stores: Misalignment Between Shopper Beliefs and Product Nutrition

Abstract

Background: Grocery stores are considered the gold standard consumer source for healthful foods and an answer to food deserts. Safeway and especially Whole Foods Market are generally perceived by consumers and branded as providing essential, high-quality, or premium-quality products that support customers' health. Per the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), products are considered healthy based on nutritional amounts of sodium, added sugar, and saturated fat, which contribute to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Research Question: Is there a discrepancy between consumer perceptions of food healthiness between Whole Foods and Safeway products? What is the prevalence of healthful products in the Whole Foods Market store? Methods: On 4/1/ 2025, we conducted a web scrape of the entire food/beverage inventory (8096 items, including 374 fresh produce) for a Whole Foods Market store (location: zip code 94022). We designated each product item to be healthy if it had any of these: low sodium, low added sugar, or low saturated fats, per the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) recommendations. Concurrently (from 3/15/2025 - 4/15/2025), we digitally surveyed 144 adult residents (1 per household), within 20 miles of the Whole Foods store, on their perceptions of the healthiness of Whole Foods products (versus those of Safeway/Other stores), health beliefs, and grocery shopping behaviors. Results/Data: Survey respondents rated Whole Foods’ healthiness more favorably than Safeway’s (3.60 versus 2.89 on Likert scale, 5= healthiest, p<0.001). When asked to choose which is healthier, 60.4% perceived Whole Foods to be healthier than Safeway, while the rest responded “no difference” (p<0.015). Yet, based on the web scrape, a greater proportion of the Whole Foods store products were not healthy (4,451 items, or 54.98%) compared to those classified as healthy (3,645 items, or 45.02%) (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Despite Whole Foods’ favorable perception as a healthier grocery store option, our results reveal a disconnect between consumers’ perceptions of Whole Foods' healthiness and Whole Foods' objective nutritional value. As such, healthy branded grocery stores– and grocery stores in general– may not be as nutritionally healthy as consumers previously assumed.