Improving Healthy Eating and the Bottom Line Impact of a Price Incentive Program in 2 Hospital Cafeterias

Purpose:To evaluate the impact of a health-promoting price intervention on food sales and profit.Design:Nonrandomized evaluation study.Setting:Two hospital cafeterias.Participants:Hospital employees (2800) were the priority population.Intervention:During baseline phase, healthy versions of existing unhealthy items were introduced. The intervention phase included marketing and price incentives/disincentives for healthy and unhealthy items, with a 35% price differential.Measures:Average and proportional change in sales and impact on financial outcomes were assessed.Analysis:Two-way factorial analyses of variance and two-proportion Z-score tests were run to assess change in sales. Independent samples t tests were used to test for changes in profit.Results:Significant impact was demonstrated on all burger sales in the desired direction during intervention (P < .001). Most notably, the average weekly turkey burger sales at Penrose Hospital (PH) increased 13-fold (10.85-145.59) and became the majority of the ma...