RE-FRESH CRE enters a new generation
DATE
TYPE Prevention Centre News
The Centre of Research Excellence in Food Retail Environments for Health: Next Generation, led by Professor Adrian Cameron of Deakin’s Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE) within the university’s Institute for Health Transformation, is embarking on a five-year program of research.
The new CRE (2024–2028) builds on the work of the previous RE-FRESH CRE (2018–2023), which showed that retail interventions can help customers make healthier choices when buying food and drinks and can also be a sustainable model for retailers.
Professor Cameron said RE-FRESH: Next Generation involved three streams of research all designed to shift retail food environments to a healthier model. With programs of work around policy solutions, monitoring for accountability and how to sustain and scale up retail initiatives, the CRE will involve partnerships with government and non-government organisations, community organisations and food retailers in Australia and overseas to develop and translate evidence.
A new ‘policy laboratory’ will focus on supporting the development and implementation of government policy in areas where voluntary action is unlikely, such as the marketing of unhealthy foods.
Our research has shown that 80 per cent of the display space at checkout and end-of-aisle displays in Australian supermarkets is devoted to unhealthy food. Unhealthy food is price discounted twice as often as healthy food and the discounts are twice as big.
Professor Adrian Cameron
Professor Cameron said the CRE will be working closely with retailers to support them to create, scale up and sustain healthy food initiatives across a range of retail types and settings.
RE-FRESH: Next Generation has researchers based in Australia and internationally, including experts in nutrition, food retail, health economics, public health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, health policy, epidemiology, health law, biostatistics, equity, co-creation, implementation science and knowledge translation. Keep an eye on the CRE’s website for new branding and Next Generation content coming soon!
The new CRE’s first event is coming up soon with launch of ‘Inside Our Supermarkets Report – Australia 2024’ on Monday 29 April 2024, with lead researcher Professor Gary Sacks joining Professor Cameron to share the headline results from the new report that rates Australia’s four major supermarkets on their nutrition policies and practices. Register here
The Prevention Centre is proud to be one of several institutions represented in RE-FRESH: Next Generation including Deakin University, The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Queensland, Monash University, The University of Auckland (New Zealand), Amsterdam UMC (Netherlands), The University of Western Australia, The University of Sydney, and Food for Health Alliance (formerly Obesity Policy Coalition).
RE-FRESH: Next Generation will continue as a valued member of the Collaboration for Enhanced Research Impact (CERI).
About CERI
The Collaboration for Enhanced Research Impact (CERI) is a joint initiative between the Prevention Centre and several NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence, established in June 2020 to enhance the profile and impact of chronic disease prevention in Australia. We are working together to find alignment in the policy and practice implications of our work and to develop shared communications across our various projects and participating centres.
