Rutgers University Teams With Gladson Interactive On Household Nutrition Study

Main Category: Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 04 Sep 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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Seeking to learn what foods the typical household has on hand -- and the nutritional value of those items -- Rutgers University recently completed a comprehensive "pantry audit" of 100 New Jersey households. A key element of the study was Gladson Interactive's unique database which connects a product's Universal Product Code (UPC) with information on the product's nutritional composition contained on the package label for over 300,000 items.

Rutgers' researchers used hand-held devices to scan the UPC of every food product in the home, excluding baby foods, bulk items such as sugar, flour and shortening, and foods with limited nutritional content such as bottled water, condiments and spices. Bar-coded items represented about 85 percent of the 250 to 300 food products in the average home. The remaining non-UPC items, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, homemade foods and fund-raising items (e.g., Girl Scout cookies), were recorded manually.

"We found that Gladson has the only comprehensive database that links the UPC to nutrient content data," said Dr. Carol Byrd-Bredbenner, professor of nutrition at Rutgers, who directed the study. "Being able to link directly the products we found in the households to their nutritional value was a major factor in the successful completion of our study."

Professor Byrd-Bredbenner's team supplemented the in-home inventory with interviews of the families' primary food purchaser to learn why products were chosen. Psychographic analyses and grouping of this data was used to determine if an "intervention" or educational plan could be developed to help households increase the nutrient value of their food purchases.

A paper on the study has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed professional journal.

Funding for the study was provided by the Canned Food Alliance. For more details about the study, visit http://www.mealtime.org.

About Gladson Interactive

Gladson Interactive, headquartered in Lisle, Ill., is a leading provider of category management services to consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and brokers. The company's core focus is on collecting primary information and package images of consumer products for a wide range of uses, including shelf space management, category management, advertising and e-applications such as online information and shopping. The company also provides data analysis, consulting, in-store merchandising solutions that support successful planogram implementation as well as store design services.

Gladson Interactive