Fear of unfavorable business outcomes, including negative financial impacts, deters implementation of school food service initiatives to support healthy student eating behaviors. There have been no systematic reviews to guide feasible long-term healthy school food initiatives. This review aimed to synthesize evidence on the effect of school food service initiatives on business outcomes, including commercial viability, stakeholder perceptions, customer perceptions, and initiative maintenance and scale-up. Business, education, and health peer-reviewed databases, and grey literature were systematically searched. Eligible studies reported on the business impact of initiatives encouraging sales of healthier foods within school cafeterias, canteens, vending machines, or online canteens. Synthesis incorporated a count of studies addressing business outcomes, health behavior outcomes, and the favorability of those outcomes. Of 5173 studies screened, 16 studies were included for analysis. Commercial viability was the most frequent theme (n = 12/16 studies), followed by stakeholder perceptions (n = 9/16), customer perceptions (n = 6/16), and initiative maintenance and scale-up (n = 2/16). Favorable business outcomes were identified in cafeterias/canteens (n = 8/10) and online canteens (n = 1/1). All vending machine initiatives (n = 7/7) reported unfavorable, mixed, or neutral outcomes. Future research should determine which types of healthy food retail initiatives deliver the most favorable business outcomes long-term for schools while optimizing student nutrition outcomes.
Keywords: economic analysis; food environment; pediatric obesity; schools.
© 2021 World Obesity Federation.