Supermarket Transaction Records In Dietary Evaluation – The STRIDE study: validation against self-reported dietary intake

Objective:

Scalable methods are required for population dietary monitoring. The Supermarket Transaction Records In Dietary Evaluation (STRIDE) study compares dietary estimates from supermarket transactions with an online FFQ.

Design:

Participants were recruited in four waves, accounting for seasonal dietary variation. Purchases were collected for 1 year during and 1 year prior to the study. Bland–Altman agreement and limits of agreement (LoA) were calculated for energy, sugar, fat, saturated fat, protein and sodium (absolute and relative).

Setting:

This study was partnered with a large UK retailer.

Participants:

Totally, 1788 participants from four UK regions were recruited from the retailer’s loyalty card customer database, according to breadth and frequency of purchases. Six hundred and eighty-six participants were included for analysis.

Results:

The analysis sample were mostly female (72 %), with a mean age of 56 years (SD 13). The ratio of purchases to intakes varied depending on amounts purchased and consumed; purchases under-estimated intakes for smaller amounts on average, but over-estimated for larger amounts. For absolute measures, the LoA across households were wide, for example, for energy intake of 2000 kcal, purchases could under- or over-estimate intake by a factor of 5; values could be between 400 kcal and 10000 kcal. LoA for relative (energy-adjusted) estimates were smaller, for example, for 14 % of total energy from saturated fat, purchase estimates may be between 7 % and 27 %.

Conclusions:

Agreement between purchases and intake was highly variable, strongest for smaller loyal households and for relative values. For some customers, relative nutrient purchases are a reasonable proxy for dietary composition indicating utility in population-level dietary research.