Feasibility of Using Food Assortment Scoring Tools (FAST) to Assess Supermarket Purchases

Real-world pricing interventions may increase healthy food purchases and decrease unhealthy food purchases, but simple tools for assessing the quality of food purchases are lacking. This study’s primary aim is to assess the feasibility of using Food Assortment Scoring Tool (FAST) to calculate the healthfulness of individual food purchases at a community grocery store. As part of a pricing intervention trial, purchasing data are being collected in a community grocery store in Baltimore, MD, using the store’s point of sale system. To pilot the feasibility of utilizing FAST to assess the healthfulness of customer purchases, we analyzed 100 transactions of 7 participating loyalty card holders from September 7th, 2018 to December 3rd, 2019. FAST consists of 13 food categories. The total weight of foods in each category is calculated, divided by total weight of the entire food purchased, then multiplied by its healthfulness parameter and all are summed together. The overall FAST score ranges from 0–100 with 100 being the healthiest. The study team had challenges categorizing certain products sold at the supermarket, such as those with temporary barcodes to implement temporary reduced prices for quick sales. However, the process was preferable to assigning Healthy Eating Index scores to transactions. The average FAST score for individual purchases was 56.51 +/– 15.29. Beverages made up the largest average gross weight share at 40.35%. The food category with the smallest gross weight share was whole grains (0.10%). FAST is an effective, simple tool to calculate the healthfulness of food purchases at a supermarket. We will extend our analysis of FAST scores to all 100 loyalty card customers participating in the study and report on the impact of the pricing intervention on purchasing patterns. Grocery stores and researchers implementing food retailer-based interventions should consider using FAST scores to evaluate the healthiness of consumer purchases. This research is supported by the Johns Hopkins Department of International Health Small Grant and a Healthy Eating Research (HER) Commissioned Analysis.