ArticlePloS one2016
Effectiveness of Pricing Strategies on French Fries and Fruit Purchases among University Students: Results from an On-Campus Restaurant Experiment.
Article in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Improving student diet and food security in higher education using participatory and co-creation approaches: a systematic review.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Pooled it
- Changes in physical activity, diet, and body weight across the education and employment transitions of early adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2020Pooled it
- Pricing Strategies to Encourage Availability, Purchase, and Consumption of Healthy Foods and Beverages: A Systematic Review.Preventing chronic disease · 2017Pooled it
- The effect of healthier menu item price reductions in the out-of-home food sector on energy purchased and consumed: a restaurant-based pilot experiment.BMC public health · 2025Trial
- Toward a Healthy and Environmentally Sustainable Campus Food Environment: A Scoping Review of Postsecondary Food Interventions.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Article
- Effectiveness of price-reduced meals on purchases among university young adults.Journal of nutritional science · 2021Article
- Associations of early adulthood life transitions with changes in fast food intake: a latent trajectory analysis.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2020Article
- A free-produce stand on campus: impact on fruit and vegetable intake in Dutch university students.Public health nutrition · 2020Article
- Social-ecological influences on unhealthy dietary behaviours among Moroccan adolescents: a mixed-methods study.Public health nutrition · 2020Article
- Understanding price incentives to upsize combination meals at large US fast-food restaurants.Public health nutrition · 2020Article
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- Changes in diet through adolescence and early adulthood: longitudinal trajectories and association with key life transitions.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis study examined the effect of a 10 and 20% meal price increase when choosing French fries and a 10 and 20% meal price reduction when choosing fruit for dessert on university students' purchasing behaviour in an on-campus restaurant. The moderating effect of gender was also investigated. Secondly, this study aimed at gaining further insight into reasons why these price manipulations did or did not change students' purchasing behaviour. MATERIALS AND
methodsThis two-phased mixed-methods study was conducted in a Belgian on-campus university restaurant with approximately 1200 to 1300 student visitors per day. In a first phase (French fries experiment), data were collected during a control week (no price manipulation) and two separate intervention weeks (10 and 20% meal price increase when students chose French fries). In a second phase (fruit experiment), following the same protocol but carried out a few weeks later, meal prices were reduced by 10 and 20% when students chose fruit for dessert. French fries and fruit sale counts relative to the total number of items sold were used as outcome measure. Short interviews were conducted in convenient subsamples of student customers to assess influences on food choice. KEY
findingsIncreasing the meal price by 10 and 20% when choosing French fries was associated with respective 10.9 and 21.8% absolute reductions in French fries purchases, while reducing the meal price by 10 and 20% when choosing fruit for dessert was associated with absolute increases in fruit purchases of respectively 25.1 and 42.4% (all p<0.001). No moderating effect of gender was detected. Besides price, food/taste preference, eating habits, health, availability and accessibility, and body satisfaction influenced students' food choices, with taste being the most frequently mentioned factor. SIGNIFICANCE: Pricing may be a promising strategy to improve university students' eating behaviour. The likelihood of intervention success may increase when combining pricing strategies with offering healthy, tasty and meal matching starchy alternatives to French fries and offering a variety of fresh and appealing fruits.
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