From October 2022, HFSS legislation means new restrictions on product placement for some high fat, salt or sugar products.
Researchers at the Consumer Data Research Centre at the University of Leeds have developed the Nutrient Profile Model (NPM) calculator which makes assessing products easy.
Our free tool calculates the NPM score and helps you identify whether a product is in scope for restrictions, supporting compliance and enforcement.
Victoria Jenneson, lead researcher on the project, explained: “It’s great to see Government taking action to restrict promotions of HFSS products, but the legislation is quite tricky to interpret. Stakeholder consultations revealed a need for support to implement the new rules, particularly for SMEs, convenience stores and enforcement officers. The NPM calculator offers a free to use mobile-friendly tool which makes HFSS assessment simple and transparent.”
CDRC part of collaborative effort to curb Leeds’ food emissions
The CDRC are part of a new collaboration which aims to reduce the city’s carbon footprint through food has been announced by Leeds City Council, the University of Leeds and FoodWise Leeds.
Around 10% of the UK’s carbon emissions can be linked to the food we eat or waste, with every part of the journey from farm to fork contributing to its overall environmental impact.
The partnership of organisations is working collaboratively on a number of new projects designed to tackle climate change by making it easier for residents and organisations to make informed food choices, support more sustainable food production, and reduce food waste.
Studies show that our collective health and the health of the planet would improve if we ate a balanced diet consistent with the NHS-recommended Eatwell guidelines. For some people, this may mean eating more fruit and vegetables and less meat.
CDRC Carbon Calculator
Researchers at the Consumer Data Research Centre (CRDC) based at the University of Leeds have recently developed a new calculator to make it easier for food venues and caterers to estimate the carbon footprint, land use, and water use of meals based on their ingredients.
The council’s school meals provider, Catering Leeds, is already trialling the new tool to review its menus and suppliers to explore how to become more sustainable and support the local authority’s climate targets. Last year, Leeds City Council set out its ambition to halve the carbon footprint of the average meal it serves by 2030.
Engaging the local community
Meanwhile, FoodWise Leeds—a citywide partnership with representatives from third sector, academia, businesses and the council—has used the calculator’s findings to show the impact of simple, nutritious, and affordable recipes published on its new online Recipe Hub. It is believed to be the first recipe hub to include carbon calculation and supports the Partnership’s ambition to encourage greater sharing of cooking skills and knowledge.
As well as developing the carbon calculator, the University of Leeds researchers have also used their research to engage young people in local primary schools through special food data science lessons, workshops, and even creating an interactive and educational ‘Planet Plates’ game.
Each of the organisations in the new partnership, plus many others, have also contributed to the creation of the first city-wide food strategy currently in development. The new Leeds Food Strategy will be published in draft form and will open to consultation later this month.
Councillor Helen Hayden, Executive Member for Infrastructure and Climate at Leeds City Council said:
“The food we eat is responsible for a significant proportion of our carbon footprint, so we believe it is important to lead by example to reduce the impact of the food we serve, whilst empowering others to do the same.
“This new collaboration with the University of Leeds and Food Wise is a brilliant example of how working together can help us realise our ambitions for a healthier and greener city.
“Going forward, we’ll continue to educate and equip organisations and residents with the tools and knowledge they need to make informed food choices, to make it easier for the city to come together to help Leeds tackle climate change through food.”
Alexandra Dalton, a former data scientist at Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) and the Consumer Data Research Centre:
“When we buy food, we don’t often think about where it has come from, or the environmental impact of the food supply chain.
“Small changes to our diets, such as eating more fruit, vegetables, and plant-based products make a difference. However, we should also try and consider where certain foods come from, how processed they are, or whether it is in season.
“While working with Leeds primary schools and Leeds City Council, we have created resources that help educate pupils about the impact of their food choices and encourage them to support more sustainable food behaviours.”
“I’m really excited to be building on our existing partnership with the University of Leeds and Leeds City Council with this new collaboration.
“The Leeds Recipe Hub is an innovative resource that will enable community groups and individuals to search, try, and share nutritious, tasty, and affordable recipes—whilst helping people to better understand the environmental impact of their food choices.
Diverse data scientists make for more representative data science
CDRC is a key funder of the LIDA Data Scientist Development Programme (DSDP) which gives early career data scientists the opportunity to use real-world data to solve real-world data challenges. By contributing to projects through funding, data and expertise, CDRC meets its objective of creating highly skilled data scientists with an understanding and ethos for open research, open methods and the current landscape of data science. In a recent case study about the Programme’s award-winning work on building a research culture which promotes Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, CDRC’s Kylie Norman discusses how more representative recruitment in data science leads to more representative data science insights.
Through its three pillars of practice – research innovation, building data science capacity, and sharing data for collaborative research through its Data Service – CDRC is able to support the DSDP, not only through funding projects for social good, but also by providing the in-house and stakeholder expertise to build the essential skills of an early career data scientist. This is owing to CDRC’s shared commitment to building resilience, robust methodologies and their understanding of ways of working in its early career data scientists. During their induction period, each cohort of LIDA data scientists receives valuable contact time with CDRC staff through lectures, seminars and workshops on hard and soft skills ranging from: reproducible coding practises and data management; GIS and spatial analysis for beginners; how to conduct data science for the greatest engagement and impact; how to work with partners; understanding their own ways of working (WoW) and the WoW of those in their teams; and what pitfalls are inherent in the practice of data science; as well as, and perhaps most importantly, how to fail well.
We all want to do good work, but deep down, I believe we also want our work to have meaning and to drive positive change.”
Eric Wanjau Muriithi, LIDA Data Scientist 2021-22
CDRC has seen the benefit of this holistic approach to developing a diversity of data science talent in more representative data insights. For example, Simon Leech, data scientist 2020-21, worked with local authorities and other stakeholders on CDRC Local Data Spaces to determine the optimal locations for COVID-19 testing sites in Liverpool, based on analyses of geodemographic factors affecting susceptibility to the virus.
It has also been able to better visualise and tell the data story of the gaps in provision of government support services to those hit hardest by the cost of living crisis, e.g. in Alex Dalton and Tom Albone’s Free School Meals Uptake blog series. Ifeanyi Chukwu’s work with CDRC’s Nik Lomax on the Impact of COVID-19 on Cancer Referrals, concluded that considering geodemographic contexts “helps to identify the segments of patients who were most vulnerable and thus may require more attention in receiving faster cancer referrals and improved prognosis.” The more representative our data scientists, the more representative the data science.
Three of the Programme’s data scientists working on CDRC research projects, Alex Dalton, Diogo Ann Onuselogu and Rosalind Martin, were nominated for the University’s Engaged for Impact Awards 2022, with two winning in their award categories, and one coming in runner-up position.
In a research culture which asks the question, “but why?”, “who do these census data overlook?”, or “what biases are inherent in these data?”, data insights are bound to be more representative because the data scientists asking those questions often have first-hand experience of falling into the so-called ‘Data Gap’. Read on to find out more about how LIDA is improving diversity and representation in its DSDP, and how CDRC is supporting this work.
Do healthy checkout strategies lead to healthier purchasing behaviour?
Research Team: Alison Fildes, University of Leeds; Phillippa Lally, University College London; Michelle A Morris, University of Leeds; Alexandra Dalton, University of Leeds; Helen Croker, University College London
From Autumn 2022, the rules for selling products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) in England will change and location restrictions will come into force to prevent these items from being shown in front of store, on gondola ends and at checkouts.
As retailers undertake preparations to implement these new regulations, researchers from the Consumer Data Research Centre and colleagues assessed the impact that location restrictions can have on the sale of less healthy foods.
In 2015 the ‘healthy checkouts initiative’ was launched in Tesco Express convenience stores across the UK. The initiative removed less healthy products – those high in fat, salt or sugar – from the in-queue checkout space in 1151 stores.
However despite having been rolled out on a mass-scale, the initiative had not been subjected to external evaluation until now and while lots has changed since 2015, it is important to share these learnings with the wider community.
In a study, published today in the journal Nutrition Bulletin our researchers analysed sales data for 1101 participating Tesco Express stores over an eight-week period in 2014, prior to the introduction of the initiative, and the same eight-week period in 2015 following the roll-out.
Analysis revealed that whilst shoppers mean overall spend increased from 2014-2015 the proportion of less healthy food decreased, from 8.21% in 2014 to 8.03% in 2015. Unsurprisingly confectionery accounted for the largest proportion of less healthy product spend and showed the biggest reduction, from 4.12% in 2014 to 3.91% in 2015.
The team used data from other major UK stores to compare Tesco’s sales to the UK market and found there was no general decline in sales of less healthy products (with the possible exception of crisps) in the UK market during the period, whereas sales from Tesco only showed a slight decrease in sales.
Co-author of the report, Dr Michelle Morris, from the Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics Team at the University of Leeds, said: “Tesco was one of the first supermarkets to implement a healthy checkout strategy and our analysis indicates that the removal of less healthy products from checkouts can lead to small but important changes with respect to healthier purchasing behaviour. However, the study also highlighted some of the challenges that retailers face when implementing such initiatives.”
Oonagh Turnbull, Head of Health and Sustainable Diets At Tesco, said: “We are committed to helping our customers enjoy a better-balanced diet and to making Tesco the easiest place to shop for affordable, healthy, sustainable food. We have a long history of taking action, from being the first supermarket to take sweets off our checkouts in large stores in 1994 to ensuring all our Own Brand soft drinks were below the Soft Drinks Sugar Levy in 2016 – ahead of its introduction.
Helping our customers to eat a healthier and more sustainable diet is a key focus for our business. In March 2021, we set out our ambitious health commitments including an increase in sales of healthy products, as a proportion of total sales, to 65% by 2025. More recently, following the Government announcement that restrictions on multibuy deals on foods high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) are to be delayed for a year, we also confirmed that we will continue with plans to remove volume-led promotions on HFSS products from October 2022.
CDRC affiliated researchers show how check-in activity between different venues can support urban planning
Researchers in the Geographic Data Science Lab at the University of Liverpool have shown how mobility data can provide insights into the structure and function of cities.
They conducted a study of human behavioural patterns using a longitudinal mobility dataset from the Foursquare Future Cities Challenge (FCC) to describe check-in activity (movement) between different venues (point of interests) across ten global cities including London, New York and Singapore. From this analysis, the researchers developed a Geographic Data Science framework that transformed the Foursquare check-in locations and user origin-destination flows data into knowledge about the emerging forms and characteristics of cities’ neighbourhoods.
Work like this will enable urban planners to understand more about the nuances of human behaviour to create better experiences for the population and guide urban development.
Researchers demonstrate the value of consumer data for population dynamics and utilities research.
A team of five researchers, based in Liverpool’s Geographic Data Science Lab (GDSL), recently took part in a three-day hackathon organised by O2, Virgin Media and Northumbrian Water. The hackathon, which took part in a hybrid online/remote format, comprised teams from many different backgrounds, including app design, UX, digital services and academia.
The team, led by Patrick Ballantyne, comprised of GDSL PhD students; Danial Owen and Sian Teesdale, and CDRC researchers; Zi Ye and Meixu Chen, with project support from CDRC Deputy Director, Professor Alex Singleton.
Utilising some impressive datasets from O2/Virgin Media and Northumbrian Water the team presented their take on “The value of consumer data for population dynamics and utilities research”.
Over the course of three days, the Liverpool team constructed a UK customer geodemographic, using data on audience insights from O2/Virgin Media, to capture the search interests of O2/Virgin Media customers.
They then applied their customer geodemographic, utilising the excellent O2 motion and Northumbrian water datasets, to demonstrate applications to population dynamics and utilities research. They investigated the recovery of different residential areas following the COVID-19 pandemic (see application 1), and the applications of geodemographics for selective targeting of water meters where they would provide better value for customers (see application 2).
Team leader Patrick Ballantyne reflected upon the experience: “This hackathon was a great opportunity to collaborate with some of my excellent colleagues on a short and exciting project, drawing upon our individual skills and talents. It enabled us to get a better understanding of how new sources of consumer data, such as O2 motion, can be used to provide solutions to societal problems”.
It is hoped that the CDRC will establish a partnership with O2/Virgin Media, enabling researchers to use their data, to provide solutions and empirical evidence to help answer societal problems.
CARTO add CDRC dataset to their Spatial Data Catalog and use it to explore UK retail centres
CARTO, one of the world’s leading location intelligence platforms has added CDRC’s Retail Centre Boundaries dataset to its Spatial Data Catalog. The dataset contains spatial boundaries for Retail Centres across the UK, as well as measures of supply vulnerability, online exposure, a clone town measure, E-resilience, and a hierarchical classification. It is based on a hexagonal H3 grid, designed for spatial analysis at scale. This gives the dataset some unique benefits when cross-analysing with other datasets.
Miguel Álvarez, Lead Data Scientist and Helen McKenzie, Geospatial Advocate at CARTO took advantage of this to explore UK retail centres. They looked for patterns by cross-analysing CDRC data with external datasets from CARTO’s extensive Spatial Data Catalog. One insight from their analysis is that, on average, Regional Centres have by far the highest number of employees per centre, averaging at around 40,000 people working within them. However, in total Town Centres (e.g. Arnold, Nottingham) are by far the biggest employer with over 600, 000 people working there.
Another CDRC dataset available on CARTO’s Spatial Data Catalog is our “Retail Centres Typology”, which is a previous version of Retail Centre Boundaries, based on 2015-18 data. However, the two datasets are not directly comparable, as they contain different information and geometric types.
If you want to go exploring using a CDRC data please visit our data catalogue, which has over 80 datasets covering the following topics: Population & Mobility; Retail Futures; Transport & Movement; Finance & Economy; and Digital.
The CDRC team were delighted to collect four awards at the University of Leeds inaugural Research Culture and Engaged for Impact Awards earlier this week.
The awards celebrated the role that all members of the research community – participants; collaborators and partners; academic, research and technical staff; professional services and students – have to play in developing and promoting a positive and inclusive research culture, as well as contributing to the impact our research makes locally, nationally and internationally.
CDRC Co-Director, Professor Mark Birkin, commented “CDRC has prospered as a research centre through an inclusive approach with a commitment to invest in the future of all team members, and through the development of robust partnerships with outside organisations. I am delighted that these values have been recognised and validated so generously through the Research Culture and Impact Awards at the University of Leeds.”
Engaged for Impact – Building partnerships and networks
This award recognises the importance of partnerships and networks to bring about change.
Winning project: Building networks with supermarkets to assess healthy and sustainable consumer diets
This collaboration with the IGD (Institute of Grocery Distribution) and their 20 retailer and manufacturer members has enabled us to trial large scale consumer interventions that incentivise healthy eating. This partnership has built on previous collaborations such as the strategic partnership between Leeds Institute for Data Analytics and Sainsbury’s and the ESRC Strategic Network for Obesity cementing a leading reputation for trusted cross sector collaboration to effect change in the food system.
Team members: Dr Michelle Morris, Dr Victoria Jenneson, Dr Stephen Clark, Diogo Ann Onuselogu, Alexandra Dalton, Francesca Pontin, Hannah Skeggs (IGD), Becky Shute (Sainsbury’s), Paul Evans and Dr Emily Ennis.
Engaged for Impact – Finding a better way
This award recognises all the ways in which new thinking and acting, new products and knowledge, lead to creating and galvanising change and innovation.
Runners-up: Building an online nutrient profile model calculator for implementation of HFSS legislation
This research revealed shortfalls in available nutritional information and practical implementation guidance for the UK Government’s Nutrient Profile Model (NPM). The NPM will be used as the basis for restricting the placement of certain foods in supermarkets as part of the UK Obesity Strategy – but data availability does not meet legislative purposes. Having consulted with industry nutritionists from retail and manufacturing companies to develop recommendations for industry and the UK Government, the team are now developing an online NPM calculator to support implementation of legislation in an open access, scalable and transparent way.
Team members: Dr Victoria Jenneson, Dr Michelle Morris and Rosalind Martin.
Engaged for impact – Caring for the future
This award recognises research impact that’s likely to build over time, leading to a fairer, safer and more equitable world and healthier environment.
Winning project: Understanding and improving the carbon footprint of school meals in Leeds
Working with Leeds City Council, this project changed council practice for designing climate-friendly school menus, by co-creating a Carbon Calculator assessing food’s environmental impact. In collaboration with the Leeds Social Sciences Institute, the project team were able to design a suite of engagement activities supported by the ESRC-funded Local Accelerator Fund. This allowed the team to use data from the tool to develop an online game and classroom activities to encourage primary school children to think about the planet’s future through their own food choices.
Team members: Dr Emily Ennis, Alexandra Dalton, Dr Michelle Morris, Mel Green, Kevin Mackay (Rethink Food), Polly Cook (Leeds City Council), Ellie Salvidge (Leeds City Council) and Gillian Banks (Leeds City Council).
Research Culture – Open research and impact
This award recognises initiatives that increase the transparency, collaboration, inclusivity, reproducibility and efficiency of research processes to build trust and accountability. It focuses on aspects such as open access and open data, and promoting the use of open platforms for sharing research data, activities, outputs and impact.
Winning project: Opening up data science to solve real-world problems
CDRC Leeds were recognised for building trust and accountability through rigorous governance and infrastructures, including our virtual research environment (Leeds Analytics Secure Environment for Research) and our research management process. As well as encouraging transparency and reproducibility by creating diverse types of derived data products, aimed at diverse groups, from policy makers and researchers, to activists and children.
“[The CDRC]appears to be a beacon of good practice and it would be useful to transfer the ways of working / methods and approaches to infrastructure and skills to others.”
Research Culture Awards Judging Panel
Team members: Professor Mark Birkin, Professor Ed Manley, Dr Nik Lomax, Dr Emily Ennis, Adam Keeley, Dr Pete Baudains, Kylie Norman, Robyn Naisbitt, Mel Green, Oli Mansell and Paul Evans.
CDRC’s Dr Michelle Morris and Kylie Norman were also included in an award won by our colleagues at Leeds Institute for Data Analytics:
Research Culture – Equality, diversity and inclusion in research
This award recognises initiatives that make positive changes to embed a culture of equality, diversity and inclusion in research.
Winning project: Championing recruitment for diversity on the LIDA Data Scientist Development Programme.
Team members: Kylie Norman, Dom Frankis, Dr Michelle Morris and Professor Nick Malleson.
Dr Emily Ennis, CDRC Research and Impact Manager commented “These awards demonstrate CDRC’s commitment to fostering open, collaborative, and co-designed research with our external partners in a way that uses data science for public good. It has been inspiring to see our research projects recognised for their impact to society beyond academia, thanks to our partnerships in retail, education, local government, the charity sector, and education, among others.
Additionally, we have also seen recognition for research led by data scientists across a range of career stages and disciplinary backgrounds, as well as appreciation for the integral role professional services and technical staff play in building open and impactful research within CDRC.”
New paper – identifying dietary patterns in supermarket transaction data and their nutrient and socioeconomic profiles
Poor diet is a leading cause of death in the United Kingdom (UK) and around the world. Methods to collect quality dietary information at scale for population research are time consuming, expensive and biased. Novel data sources offer potential to overcome these challenges and better understand population dietary patterns.
In a recent paper in Nutrients CDRC researchers Dr Stephen Clark and Dr Michelle Morris used 12 months of supermarket sales transaction data, from 2016, for primary shoppers residing in the Yorkshire and Humber region of the UK (n = 299,260), to identify dietary patterns and profile these according to their nutrient composition and the sociodemographic characteristics of the consumer purchasing with these patterns.
Results identified seven dietary purchase patterns that they named: Fruity; Meat alternatives; Carnivores; Hydrators; Afternoon tea; Beer and wine lovers; and Sweet tooth. On average the daily energy intake of loyalty card holders – who may buy as an individual or for a household – is less than the adult reference intake, but this varies according to dietary purchase pattern.
In general loyalty card holders meet the recommended salt intake, do not purchase enough carbohydrates, and purchase too much fat and protein, but not enough fibre. The dietary purchase pattern containing the highest amount of fibre (as an indicator of healthiness) is bought by the least deprived customers and the pattern with lowest fibre by the most deprived. In conclusion, supermarket sales data offer significant potential for understanding population dietary patterns.
London house price increases linked to areas with more Airbnbs
Areas in London with more Airbnb listings are more likely to see increases in house prices, according to a team of researchers from the CDRC at UCL.
In a study published in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, UCL researchers were able to track the relationship between the number of properties listed on the short-term letting platform and the changes in house price in the area – measured in £ per square metre – using a comprehensive listings database and house price data.
Across Central London, researchers found a tendency towards increased house prices in areas with more Airbnb listings, with large parts of Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Camden exceeding rises of £20 per m2 per month from January 2015 to May 2018. The highest increases across the city as a whole occurred north of the River Thames, with more modest growth towards the South and East.
Despite the generally positive trend, the findings also revealed important contrasts where some areas had a negative association with house prices and experienced reductions of more than £20 per m2.
Whilst more research is needed to understand why such differences occur, the findings paint the most detailed picture yet of Airbnb’s interaction with the London housing market. With boroughs broken down into smaller areas containing between just 400 and 1,200 households, the researchers argue that the level of granularity presented provides local decision-makers with the detail needed to produce better, more localised, housing policy to inform regeneration strategies.
Professor James Cheshire (CDRC Deputy Director, UCL) said: “The housing market in London is complex and there is still a lot we don’t know about how platforms such as Airbnb are interacting with local price fluctuations. Thanks to the detail in this analysis, we can begin to take a closer look to understand some of the patterns that are emerging and the reasoning behind these.”
Whilst the data used in the analysis span January 2015 to May 2018 and capture a pre-pandemic city, the researchers believe their findings could help to inform London’s Covid-19 recovery.
“Central London’s rental market has cooled dramatically over the last year, as many workers and tourists have left the city during lockdown, so we have an opportunity to influence its recovery,” Professor Cheshire added. “Policymakers can either help areas return to business as usual – or take a closer look at both the costs and the benefits that platforms like Airbnb can bring to communities”.
Currently, London is one of a handful of cities on Airbnb to have restrictions on the number of days “entire home” listings can be occupied per year, which is no more than 90 days. Introduced in 2017, this measure was implemented by the platform to ensure the sustainable and responsible growth of home sharing in the city.
The research team note that previous studies have found that Airbnb takes up around 1.4% of the total housing supply in London.
The data used in the study were supplied by the ESRC-funded Consumer Data Research Centre and the analysis was conducted by James Todd (UCL Geography), Dr Anwar Musah (UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction) and Professor James Cheshire (UCL Geography and Consumer Data Research Centre).
