Nudging and food shopping: A review of technological interventions within the grocery environment

Food choice decisions and dietary habits contribute significantly to the current global epidemic of obesity. Designing healthful shopping environments is key to supporting consumers in making informed food choices and addressing diet-related health issues such as obesity. This systematic review aimed to consolidate and synthesize extant literature on nudging and the role of technology on healthy food choice decisions and address the research question of how nudging techniques, particularly those enabled by technologies, are used to influence healthy decisions in food retail environments. The review included studies published between 2011 and 2024 across five databases. It followed the PRISMA structure to systematically identify, screen, and synthesize, the literature. Through the searches, 11,662 papers were identified. Overall, twenty-five papers met the inclusion criteria and are included within this review. Three contributions are made. First, a novel and rigorous systematic literature review process synthesizes studies of nudging techniques in shaping food choice with gaps in knowledge for further research highlighted. Second, the review identifies the importance of nudging interventions on consumers’ health-related food choices in retail environments. Existing nudging taxonomies are introduced to provide new frameworks for future research. Third, the review provides new insights and future research opportunities pertaining to digital technology-enabled nudging for consumer food choice decisions. Examples of technology include virtual reality, mobile applications, and augmented reality.