Retail food environments, purchasing patterns, and nutritional status of consumers living in Potchefstroom, South Africa

Abstract

Since the 1990s, South African food environments have changed to include the increased availability and affordability of processed and fast-foods. The shift has negatively influenced consumer purchasing behaviour and health status'. This development occurred due to a flood of trade and investment, along with the market share of the formal food sector increasing. The food environment is a component of the broader food system that surrounds consumers to give them access to and influence their food purchasing and consumption behaviour. The retail food environment is one category of the entire food environment and refers to both the formal and informal food sources that surround consumers. Since research on retail food environments in South Africa has mostly focused on the Western Cape and does not measure the formal and the informal food sectors and their influence on consumer health and purchasing behaviour, this research in Potchefstroom was warranted. This research was a sub-study in a larger research project, titled the NutritionStat and NutritionEd study. The latter followed a quantitative cross-sectional design with purposive sampling of 80 participants residing in different residential neighbourhoods in Potchefstroom. The additional exclusion criteria for this sub-study excluded a further six of these participants for a total of 74 participants. The data used for this sub-study were collected during 2018 and 2019 during two sequential phases using structured questionnaires and cross-sectional capturing of the retail food environment. Due to the small sample size and non-probability sampling method, the associations found could not generalisable to the larger Potchefstroom population. The results indicated that each neighbourhood had different numbers of food outlets and food advertisement exposure, as most of the formal food sector's outlets and advertisements were prominent in the suburban and Bult areas, while the informal sector dominated the township areas. Although supermarkets have expanded into lower-income neighbourhoods, most formal food outlets were still located in the more developed areas, including suburban and Bult neighbourhoods. Despite the formal food sector's expansion, the informal food sector remained resilient in their communities as they still dominate the township areas. This shows that although apartheid has been abolished, food outlet allocation remains skewed. Results from the analysis of purchasing patterns show that the participants mainly purchased food from their immediate retail food environments, as the participants who were located further away from food outlets, tended to access them less. The participants often used formal food outlets for food acquisition, as most participants from all neighbourhoods purchased from iv formal supermarkets and fast-food outlets, even though they were not always located in their immediate environment. Furthermore, the participants who were exposed to certain food outlets and food advertisements seemed to purchase more frequently from those specific outlets. In conclusion, this research contributes to the limited knowledge on retail food environments in Potchefstroom as it found associations between exposure to retail food environments and food purchasing behaviour, indicating that the surrounding environment could influence consumer purchasing behaviour. Thus, this research provides a baseline for follow-up studies to help elucidate the influence that the retail food environment seems to have on consumers and their purchasing behaviour.