Food Prices

What is the relative price and affordability of ‘less healthy’ vs ‘healthy’ foods, meals and diets?

Food prices and food affordability are important determinants of food choices, obesity and non-communicable diseases. The monitoring of the price and affordability of ‘healthy’ and ‘less healthy’ foods and diets globally will provide robust data and benchmarks to inform economic and fiscal policy responses.

A step-wise monitoring framework, including measurement indicators, has been proposed for INFORMAS:

  • ‘Minimal’ data collection will assess the differential price of ‘healthy’ and ‘less healthy’ foods
  • ‘Expanded’ monitoring will assess the differential price of ‘healthy’ and ‘less healthy’ diets
  • And the ‘optimal’ approach will also monitor food affordability, by taking into account household income

For the Module Overview video describing protocols, methodological developments, and common FAQs, please follow the link here

 

Dr. Sally Mackay (Coordinator)

Research Fellow and Lecturer

The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Email: Sally Mackay

 

Amanda Lee

Professor of Public Health Policy, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Australia

 
 

Kathryn Backholer

Deakin University, Australia
 

Meron Lewis

PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland, Australia
 

Christina Zorbas

Deakin University, Australia
 

Christina Pollard

Public Health Advocacy Institute, WA & Curtin University, Australia

 

Tim Landrigan

PhD Candidate, Curtin University, Australia
 

Mary L’Abbe

The University of Toronto, Canada
 

Guanlan Hu

The University of Toronto, Canada
Email: Guanlan Hu
 

Amos Laar

The University of Ghana, Ghana
Email: Amos Laar
 

Delaram Ghodsi

Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Iran
 

Carolina Batis Ruvalcaba

National Institute of Public Health (INSP), Mexico
 

Mishel Unar Munguia

National Institute of Public Health (INSP), Mexico
 

Luciana Castronuovo

FIC Argentina
 

Stefanie Vandevijvere

Sciensano, Belgium
 

Igor Pravst

Nutrition Institute, Slovenia
 

Lewis, M.; Nash, S.; Lee, A.J. Cost and Affordability of Habitual and Recommended Diets in Welfare-Dependent Households in Australia. Nutrients 202416, 659. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16050659

Lee, A.J., Herron, LM., Rainow, S., Wells, L., Kenny, I., Kenny, L., Wells, I., Kavanagh, M., Bryce, S., Balmer, L. Improving economic access to healthy diets in first nations communities in high-income, colonised countries: a systematic scoping review. Nutr J 23, 10 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12937-023-00895-0

Lewis, M.; Nash, S.; Lee, A.J. Cost and Affordability of Habitual and Recommended Diets in Welfare-Dependent Households in AustraliaNutrients 202416, 659. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16050659

Monitoring the price and affordability of foods and diets globally (pages 82–95) A. Lee, C. N. Mhurchu, G. Sacks, B. Swinburn, W. Snowdon, S. Vandevijvere, C. Hawkes, M. L’Abbé, M. Rayner, D. Sanders, S. Barquera, S. Friel, B. Kelly, S. Kumanyika, T. Lobstein, J. Ma, J. Macmullan, S. Mohan, C. Monteiro, B. Neal, C. Walker and INFORMAS

Read the INFORMAS paper online here

Below are the INFORMAS protocols to download. Some protocols are still under development – contact us if you would like more information. Please read the terms and conditions regarding the use of the protocols. You must complete this agreement and return it to us if you are using and/or adapting the protocol. You may then use, modify and reproduce the protocol, but the work that results from using the INFORMAS resources remains available to the INFORMAS group and falls under the same ‘copyleft’ principles as the original protocol (i.e., you can’t claim copyright on protocols you develop based on INFORMAS resources). You don’t have to share the whole work that results from using the INFORMAS resources, but are expected to share:

  • Any modifications or updates you make to the protocol (e.g., updates for your own country)
  • The final (cleaned) data as collected using the protocol.