Can Health Information and Price Incentives Promote Whole-Grain Choices? A Real Purchase Experiment in China

Whole grains provide substantial health benefits and contribute to environmental sustainability. However, consumption of whole grains in China remains low. To further promote whole grain consumption, the Chinese government launched the Whole-grain Action Plan (2024–2035) in December 2024 with goals to substantially increase public awareness of the benefits of whole grains and significantly increase the share of whole grains in the Chinese diet by 2035 (National Development and Reform Commission et al. 2024). While current consumption-side policies to promote whole grain consumption rely primarily on information dissemination, such as public campaigns and dietary guidelines that provide consumers with the nutritional and health benefits of whole grains, leaving other policy instruments largely unexplored. This study investigated the effects of information intervention and price subsidy on promoting whole-grain bread choices among Chinese consumers, using a controlled quasi-experiment in a real supermarket setting in urban Beijing. Three conditions—information intervention, price subsidy intervention, and control—were implemented in separate time slots over the course of eight days. The information intervention featured health messages from the Chinese dietary guidelines on whole grains, displayed next to whole-grain bread products. The price subsidy intervention provided a post-purchase cash rebate, reducing the price of high whole-grain content bread products to the lowest-priced bread of all bread products. Analyzing how consumers respond to these interventions could provide valuable policy insights on designing more effective policies to promote whole-grain consumption in China.