{"id":3697,"date":"2015-04-17T15:01:29","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T19:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2015\/04\/17\/making-concessions\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T18:15:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T23:15:15","slug":"making-concessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/making-concessions\/","title":{"rendered":"Making concessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shutterstock_167032304\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hot dogs, soft drinks, pizza, and candy\u2014these\u00a0are the staples of the concession stand menu.\u00a0Convenient? Yes. Good for you? No.<\/p>\n

But, if healthy food options were offered, would customers take advantage of them?<\/p>\n

Health sciences major Olivia Haase \u201915 says \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this year’s FurmanEngaged!, Haase and her faculty mentor, Dr. Jeanine Stratton, presented their research and analysis of\u00a0sales at concession stands at two Greenville County waterparks. The research, which partners with LiveWell Greenville and Rhino Concessions, targeted recreational facilities with concession stands because those areas have a captive audience and healthy food choices are typically not offered or available.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, they found that providing healthy food choices and marketing them to consumers at recreational facilities results in higher sales of those healthy foods.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at children between the ages of 6 and 11, researchers found that 31.8 percent of the U.S. population is obese while 33.7 percent in South Carolina and 35 percent in Greenville County hit the obesity mark. Greenville County\u2019s numbers are among the highest in the country,\u201d Haase said.<\/p>\n

She and Dr. Stratton wanted to find out whether an increase in healthy choices, menus that label the healthy choices, and LiveWell-approved choices, would change the pattern of consumer purchases between 2011, the base year, and 2014. In addition to identifying the new items on menu boards, LiveWell hung banners to promote them. Among the items added were grilled chicken sandwiches, salads, wraps, and fruit cups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was some price change. The average was about 50 cents more. We don\u2019t think that would sway a purchase\u201d either way very highly, she said.<\/p>\n

Sales totaled nearly $90,000 in 2011. \u201cOverall total sales are decreasing, but healthy choices sales were increasing,\u201d Haase said. \u201cBottled water is through the roof. Mixed fruit cups did really well.\u201d However, some healthy choices didn\u2019t do as well as anticipated, perhaps because people don\u2019t go to recreational facilities to eat healthy food.<\/p>\n

In 2011, healthy food choices made up about 5 percent of total sales. In 2014, healthy food purchases made up nearly 14 percent of total sales. During the study period, attendance dropped from 110,000 in 2011 to 73,000 in 2013, with weather patterns being a major variable in attendance levels.<\/p>\n

The data shows that availability of healthy choices and marketing can affect purchasing decisions, she said. But more research is needed to determine whether marketing is a major factor or whether awareness of the obesity crisis makes consumers more likely to buy a healthy choice even without promotions. Plans are underway to expand the facilities offering the LiveWell\u2013endorsed foods.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are recognizing that the obesity epidemic is so grave that they must be open to healthy options,\u201d Haase said.<\/p>\n

But, Stratton, assistant business professor at Furman, pointed out, consumers still have a choice. The menu items were not all healthy or LiveWell endorsed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re giving them the option, but you\u2019re also giving them the knowledge,\u201d Haase said.<\/p>\n

Stratton said she believes adding healthy options to menus will continue to become more prevalent. \u201cBusinesses want to do well by the communities they serve,\u201d she said, and in the long run that\u2019s good for the business.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learn more about FurmanEngaged!<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Image courtesy of shutterstock.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot dogs, soft drinks, pizza, and candy\u2014these\u00a0are the staples of the concession stand menu.\u00a0Convenient? Yes. Good for you? No. But, if healthy food options were offered, would customers take advantage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":14746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,20,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-business-and-accounting","category-health-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}