Executive Summary
In recent years, healthy food pricing incentives have emerged as a promising strategy to improve nutrition. We define a healthy food pricing incentive as a monetary award that reduces the price of healthy foods, making them more affordable.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that these incentives increase the purchase and consumption of healthy foods, especially of fruits and vegetables, and particularly among low-income populations. While the science is clear that pricing incentives work, it remains unknown what specific attributes of incentive programs contribute to success.
To help answer this question, Healthy Food America conducted key informant interviews with fourteen national healthy food pricing incentive experts.
We completed two research reports to inform this report: a systematic literature review of studies published between 2000 and January 2019 and interviews with leaders in the field conducted in mid-2018. An infographic is available that summarizes the report.