TY - JOUR T1 - Effect of voluntary Health Star Rating labels on healthier food purchasing in New Zealand: longitudinal evidence using representative household purchase data JF - BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health JO - BMJ Nutrition SP - 227 LP - 234 DO - 10.1136/bmjnph-2022-000459 VL - 5 IS - 2 AU - Laxman Bablani AU - Cliona Ni Mhurchu AU - Bruce Neal AU - Christopher L Skeels AU - Kevin E Staub AU - Tony Blakely Y1 - 2022/12/01 UR - http://nutrition.bmj.com/content/5/2/227.abstract N2 - Front-of-pack labelling (FoPL) aims to promote healthier diets by altering consumer food purchasing behaviour. We quantify the impact of the voluntary Health Star Rating (HSR) FoPL adopted by New Zealand (NZ) in 2014, on (i) the quantity of foods purchased by HSR scores and food groups and (ii) the quantities of different nutrients purchased.We used Nielsen HomeScan household purchasing panel data over 2013–2019, linked to Nutritrack packaged food composition data. Fixed effects analyses were used to estimate the association of HSR with product and nutrient purchasing. We controlled for NZ-wide purchasing trends and potential confounding at the household and product level.In 2019, HSR-labelled products accounted for 24% (2890) of 12 040 products in the dataset and 32% of purchasing volume. Of HSR-labelled products, 1339 (46%) displayed a rating of 4.0–5.0 stars and 556 (19%) displayed a rating of 0.5–2.0 stars.We found little or no association between HSR labelling and the quantities of different foods purchased. Introduction of HSR was, however, associated with lower sodium (−9%, 95% CI −13% to −5%), lower protein (−3%, 95% CI −5% to 0%) and higher fibre (5%, 95% CI 2% to 7%) purchases when purchased products carrying an HSR were compared with the same products prior to introduction of the programme.Robust evidence of HSR labelling changing consumer purchasing behaviour was not observed. The positive effect on nutrient purchasing of HSR-labelled foods likely arises from reformulation of products to achieve a better HSR label.Data are available on reasonable request. Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Because of commercial and legal restrictions to the use of copyrighted material it is not possible to share data openly which reveal the product or supermarket names, but unredacted versions of the dataset are available with a licensed agreement that they will be restricted to non-commercial use. For access to Nutritrack, please contact The National Institute for Health Innovation at the University of Auckland at enquiries@nihi.auckland.ac.nz. For access to Nielsen HomeScan, please contact Nielsen at +64 9 970 4188. ER -