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Accepted manuscript

Healthy vending machines on campus: The effect of traffic light labelling on food and beverage choices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2025

Ryan Calabro Open the ORCID record for Ryan Calabro [Opens in a new window] ,
Eva Kemps ,
Ivanka Prichard Open the ORCID record for Ivanka Prichard [Opens in a new window]  and
Marika Tiggemann
Ryan Calabro*
Affiliation:
Psychology, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Eva Kemps
Affiliation:
Psychology, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Ivanka Prichard
Affiliation:
Health & Exercise Sciences, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Marika Tiggemann
Affiliation:
Psychology, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ryan Calabro, Psychology, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia. Emails may be sent to [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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Objective:

To investigate whether the introduction of healthy vending machines on a university campus could increase the proportion of healthy food and beverage purchases.

Design:

Four new healthy vending machines offering a wider range of healthier food and beverages were installed alongside existing machines. These new machines used traffic light colours to indicate nutritional value. A year after their installation, a traffic light text guide and colourful wrap were added to the new machines. Chi-square tests were used to assess significant differences in the sales of green (healthy), amber, or red (unhealthy) items from healthy and existing vending machines across the three years (2021 – 2023).

Setting:

The study was conducted on a university campus where the new healthy vending machines were installed.

Participants:

Participants of this study were the consumers who purchased items from the vending machines on the university campus.

Results:

The results indicated a shift towards healthier purchases following the introduction of the healthy vending machines. The addition of the traffic light text guide and colourful wrap further reduced unhealthy purchases, although this change was small. Sales from the existing vending machines did not meaningfully decrease, and any reductions were more than replaced by sales from the new healthy vending machines.

Conclusions:

The study concluded that by providing healthier options and guiding consumers towards these options, the vending machine program offers a promising pathway towards promoting healthier food and beverage choices from vending machines on university campuses.

Keywords

vending machinefood and beverage choicestraffic light systemincreased healthy rangecampus study
Type
Research Paper
Information
Public Health Nutrition , Accepted manuscript , pp. 1 - 20
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society