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AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether consumers in Scotland's remote areas suffer from food prices that are higher than the average national prices (i.e., whether a "remoteness premium" exists). The question has been raised by several organizations in those communities looking at the high prices in local stores. This paper provides a new perspective using actual purchasing prices of a sample of 5,252 households in Scotland for 2017 and 2018. In this way, households' ability to shop for lower prices is considered, unlike in previous studies. An expensiveness index was computed to measure the expensiveness of food at household level and control for differences in quality. It showed that consumers in remote areas pay a small premium (0.3 to 0.4 percent) with respect to average prices, which is statistically significant but economically not relevant. To understand the effect of several factors, AHEI was regressed on a number of explanatory variables including local area characteristics and household demographics and consumers' shopping strategy. The results were used to simulate three hypothetical scenarios related to impact of changes in the population's age, access to discount stores, and social deprivation on food expensiveness.

Funding: This work was supported as part of the Strategic Research Programme of the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division, Theme 3: Food and Health (Work packages 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3). Data Availability Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy restrictions. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

Funding Information: This work was supported as part of the Strategic Research Programme of the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division, Theme 3: Food and Health (Work packages 3.2 and 3.3). ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

FUNDING This work was supported as part of the Strategic Research Programme of the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division, Theme 3: Food and Health (Work packages 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

This work was supported by the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division. FUNDING This work was supported as part of the Strategic Research Programme of the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division, Theme 3: Food and Health (Work packages 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3). ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

The analysis of changes in prices is not only important because they directly affect households' affordability and, therefore, their food security but also because they may trigger changes in the composition of their food and drink choices. Thus, an increase in prices may force a household with limited resources to choose a bundle of goods with lower prices that substitute their original choices and are probably of lower quality. This paper considers the situation of each UK country and the implications that trading down in quality within a food and drink category has on nutrition. Two motivations to pursue these analyses are to explore the sort of substitutions that households do within a category due to an increase in prices and, in the UK leaving the European Union (Brexit) context, the impact that an increase in food prices may have on nutrition. After computing estimates for trading down for each country for the period 2007–2014, we regress the annual rate of change by nutrient with respect to the annual trading in quality for six food qualities that are major contributors of fat, sugar and salt to the diet. The results indicate that trading down in quality occurs in most of the studied categories and countries, and when households trade down, they move to products with worse nutritional quality. This points out the need to keep improving the quality of products through reformulation, ensure that consumers are well informed of nutritional quality of products and monitor the effect of changes in prices.

The analysis of changes in prices is not only important because they directly affect households' affordability and, therefore, their food security but also because they may trigger changes in the composition of their food and drink choices. Thus, an increase in prices may force a household with limited resources to choose a bundle of goods with lower prices that substitute their original choices and are probably of lower quality. This paper considers the situation of each UK country and the implications that trading down in quality within a food and drink category has on nutrition. Two motivations to pursue these analyses are to explore the sort of substitutions that households do within a category due to an increase in prices and, in the UK leaving the European Union (Brexit) context, the impact that an increase in food prices may have on nutrition. After computing estimates for trading down for each country for the period 2007–2014, we regress the annual rate of change by nutrient with respect to the annual trading in quality for six food qualities that are major contributors of fat, sugar and salt to the diet. The results indicate that trading down in quality occurs in most of the studied categories and countries, and when households trade down, they move to products with worse nutritional quality. This points out the need to keep improving the quality of products through reformulation, ensure that consumers are well informed of nutritional quality of products and monitor the effect of changes in prices.