The shift toward online grocery shopping has potential nutrition implications because this shopping format may include or lack information and features that support shoppers’ efforts to make healthful food purchase decisions. When shopping for groceries in a physical store, some nutrition information is available to support healthy food purchase decisions. For example, in the US, Nutrition Facts panel and ingredient statement information is available on most prepackaged foods because of regulatory mandates.
In addition, the physical store layout of products may be designed to assist shoppers in locating foods with certain nutrition attributes.8
Similar information and design features may or may not be included in virtual supermarkets. In addition, online grocery stores could include features to support healthy food choices not available or viable in a physical store. For instance, the option to filter food search results by nutritional attributes (eg, limits foods displayed to those that are low sodium) could be included to assist shoppers in identifying food products that align with their nutrition goals. In addition, the option to sort food search results by a nutrition attribute (eg, list foods in rank order by milligrams of sodium per serving) could be included as a feature.
