Food purchasing behaviour of shoppers from different South African socio-economic communities: results from grocery receipts, intercept surveys and in-supermarkets audits.

Objective: To identify factors associated with food purchasing decisions and expenditure of South African supermarket shoppers across income levels.

Design: Intercept surveys were conducted, grocery receipts collated and expenditure coded into categories, with each category calculated as percentage of the total expenditure. In-supermarket food quality audit and shelf space measurements of foods such as fruits and vegetables (F&V) (healthy foods), snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) (unhealthy foods) were also assessed.