Increasing Sugarless Beverage Consumption within a Cafeteria

Year Submitted: 2025
Published Date: 06 November 2025

Tags: Health Promotion, Public Awareness, Quality Of Life, Care Continuum, Preventive Care

About this Content

Aims

Project 1: The research team worked with an on-campus cafeteria to encourage people to consume sugarless beverages. Two different interventions were used. The first
intervention involved using posters to persuade consumers to buy sugarless beverages though the use of nudges, while the second intervention involved rearranging the drinks such that sugarless beverages were placed at eye-level. The research team found that using posters to persuade consumers to buy sugarless beverages unexpectedly resulted in a lower percentage of sugarless beverages being purchased. In contrast, placing the sugarless beverages at eye-level almost doubled
the percentage of sugarless beverages being purchased.
Project 2: Two interventions were used to try to nudge consumers decision to purchase sugarless beverages in Temasek Polytechnics canteens. The first intervention involved using posters to persuade consumers to buy sugarless beverages, while the second intervention involved using three types of stickers with curated messages (nudges) that were pasted on the canteen tables. The researchers found that using posters to persuade consumers to buy sugarless beverages had no effect, and in fact resulted in a lower percentage of sugarless beverages being purchased. In addition, using the stickers to persuade consumers to buy sugarless beverages was effective initially, but this effect gradually wore off as time passed.

Methods

Project 1: Two interventions were used. The first intervention involved using posters to persuade consumers to buy sugarless beverages though the use of nudges such as timeliness and saliency. The second intervention involved rearranging the drinks such that sugarless beverages were placed at eye-level.
Project 2: In Week 1, baseline information regarding the percentage of sugarless drinks sold was measured (without any interventions). In Weeks 2 and 3, two interventions were carried out (poster and sticker interventions).

Results

Project 1: In Week 2, the poster was ineffective and dissuaded consumers away from sugarless drinks (Figure 4). A possible reason for this might have been that that poster also increased the salience of low-sugar (as opposed to sugarless) beverages, thereby attracting more consumers to that choice. In Week 3, rearranging the bottled sugarless beverages was effective and encouraged consumers to choose sugarless drinks over sugared drinks (Figure 5).
Project 2: Overall, we did not find any consistent pattern of results with regards to the different stickers effectiveness. Hence, we decided to collapse the data for the different stickers and analyse them as a whole. Both interventions (i.e., stickers-only, stickers and poster) generally resulted in more sugarless drinks being purchased (Figure 4), probably because they served as a reminder to consumers to choose sugarless drinks over sugared drinks. However, when we looked at the percentage of sugarless drinks purchased over weeks, we noted that the effect of the stickers might be gradually reduced over time, as the number of sugarless drinks purchased started to drop in Week 3 (Figure 5). We suspect this was due to the novelty factor of the stickers wearing out.

Lessons Learnt

The poster had the unexpected negative effect of dissuading consumers from
selecting sugarless drinks. From this, the lesson learnt was that we should be cautious
not to send unintended messages in crafting our nudges, such as promoting low-sugar
as opposed to sugarless beverages. A more direct nudge, such as placing sugarless
drinks at eye-level, had a positive effect of encouraging consumers to choose
sugarless drinks.

Keywords

reduce sugar consumption, lifestyle intervention, healthy living, diabetes

Innovators' Details

Connect with this contributor!

Tan Wah Pheow - TAN_Wah_Pheow@tp.edu.sg

Project Attachment

174_TP_TPCABS_Increasing_Sugarless_Beverage_Consumption_within_a_Cafeteria.pdf