Conducting industry informant interviews to advance healthy food retail initiatives: challenges, opportunities, and lessons.

ABSTRACT: Retail food environments influence dietary health, yet efforts to improve them have had limited success. Recruiting informants from the food and beverage retail industry for insider information has been challenging due to the sensitivity of inquiries and proprietary protections. Moreover, which recruitment approaches are successful are seldom disseminated. This paper aimed to bridge this gap by detailing the complexities of recruiting and interviewing four food industry insider groups-independent store owners, corporate chain managers, food and beverage distributors, and sales representatives of major companies-to provide insights and specific guidance for future research. From October 2021 to November 2022, we interviewed 49 industry informants to explore business and commercial practices

SUBMITTER: Zhang AY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11579594 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature