Health-conscious shoppers might soon have an easier way to track their diet than reading food package labels. The bar codes currently used at supermarket checkouts to identify a product and its price could also provide its nutritional profile. Researchers at the United Kingdom’s University of Leeds and the Public Health Nutrition Unit (PHNU) at Trinity and All Saints College found that a shopper’s supermarket receipt could provide a good indication of fat consumption levels. In our society, more than 90 percent of our food comes from supermarkets, so receipts are as good a measure of household fat intake as a food diary (in which people often underreport what they actually eat), says PHNU Director Joan Ransley. She led the two-year study, supported by a grant from the Medical Research Council with funds from the U.K. Department of Health.Ransley admits that adding up fat grams only after an afternoon of aisle-cruising isn’t ideal. “It would be useful for the consumer to see a fat tally before the final purchase, but this may not be practical given supermarket queues,” she explains. “But consumers could use the tally to educate themselves so that better choices could be made during subsequent shopping trips.”Privacy concerns could pop up if the nutrition reports became commonplace. “In the U.K. we have the Data Protection Act, which does not allow information about an individual to be passed on to a third party without their consent,” says Ransley. “But provided this information is not passed on, it is OK to generate the data.” In the future, researchers say, looking at aggregated receipts could allow more detailed analysis of a population’s nutritional intake and aid in the research into the links between diet and disease. Related content BrandPost Retail innovation playbook: Fast, economical transformation on Microsoft Cloud For retailers, tight integration of data and systems is the antidote to a challenging economy. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 24, 2023 3 mins Retail Industry Digital Transformation BrandPost How retailers are empowering business transformation with TCS and Microsoft Cloud AI-powered omnichannel integration and a strong, secure digital core lets retailers innovate across four primary areas while staying compliant, maintaining security and preventing fraud. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 24, 2023 4 mins Retail Industry Cloud Computing BrandPost How to Build ROI from Cloud Migration This whitepaper and webcast can help you calculate the ROI and create a business case for modernizing your legacy applications to the Microsoft Cloud. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 24, 2023 1 min Retail Industry Cloud Computing BrandPost How to power a sustainable enterprise on Microsoft Cloud In this eBook, we’ll follow the journey of Amal Skye, a fictitious woman who is committed to living in a way that preserves the planet for the future —and how businesses like Tata Consultancy Services and Microsoft are making that possi By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 24, 2023 1 min Retail Industry Green IT Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe