Deal or no deal? The prevalence and nutritional quality of price promotions among U.S. food and beverage purchases.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines trends in the prevalence of price promotions among packaged food and beverage purchases, differences in prevalence by household race/ethnicity or income, and the association between price promotions and the nutritional profile of purchases.

DESIGN: This cross-sectional study utilizes a dataset of 90 million purchases from 38,744 (2008) to 45,042 (2012) US households in 2008-2012. Chi-square tests were used to examine whether the proportion of purchases with price promotions changed over time or differed by household race/ethnicity or income. T-tests were used to compare purchased products' nutritional profiles.

RESULTS: Prevalence of price promotions among packaged food and beverage purchases increased by 8% and 6%, respectively, from 2008 to 2012, with both reaching 34% by 2012. Higher-income households had greater proportions of purchases with price promotions than lower-income households. Asian households had the highest proportion of purchases with any price promotion, followed by non-Hispanic whites. While total price-promoted packaged food purchases had higher mean energy, total sugar, and saturated fat densities than purchases with no price promotions, absolute differences were small.

CONCLUSIONS: Prevalence of price promotions among US household purchases increased from 2008 to 2012 and was greater for higher-income households. No clear associations emerged between presence of price promotions and nutritional quality of purchases.