Table 2.
Selected characteristics of participating food service organizations
| Company type | Concession | Concession | Concession | Vending machine | Vending machine | Vending machine |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manager(s) interviewed | 1. District manager | Nutrition consultant | Owner and manager | Owner and manager | Vending supervisor | Vending supervisor |
| 2. Unit manager | ||||||
| ANGCY adoption status in recreational facilities | Adopter | Non-adopter but willing to adopt | Non-adopter | Adopter | Adopter | Non-adopter |
| Scale of operations | International franchise | International franchise | Single site | Provincial | Municipal | Municipal |
| Brand image | Popular for its fries and poutine but also has a proprietary nutrition programme | Well-established healthy brand image | Popular for its fast-food style menu | Known for its healthier snack food and beverage items | Popular for its traditional snack food and beverage items | Popular for its traditional snack food and beverage items |
| Contractual obligations | Contractually obligated to implement the ANGCY | None | None | None | Contractually obligated to implement the ANGCY | None |
| Availability of healthy food items* | 16 % | 24 % | 8 % | 4 %§ | 2 % | 0 % |
| Availability of healthy beverages* | 16 % | 20 % | 15 % | 26 % | 31 % | 13 % |
| Perceived sales of healthier compared with less healthy items | ‘Whether we like it or not they don't want cucumbers with light organic dressing … What sells is fries and poutine’ | ‘I would say the majority [of the menu] is healthy’ | ‘French fries is what I sell the most’ | ‘I can't give a granola bar away … I'll dust them off every 2 weeks. The regular chips … [and] the chocolate bars … sell’ | ‘But no one buys [the healthier products], right? If they go to a machine and there's a choice between a [granola bar] and a [chocolate bar], they're going to take the [chocolate bar]’ | ‘There's nobody in this business can make money [selling healthy foods] … If you're offering the choices they're always going to go for the unhealthy choice’ |
| Reported decline in revenue post-ANGCY implementation† | ↓17 % | N/A | N/A | ↓50 % | ↓20 % | N/A |
| Perceived impact of the ANGCY on profitability‡ | ‘It's devastating … Horrible, our sales have been reduced’ | N/A | N/A | ‘I had twenty-four staff and four partners. There's one partner and eleven staff left’ | ‘It's tough on business .. We lost a full position so we had to fire someone’ | N/A |
ANGCY, Alberta Nutrition Guidelines for Children and Youth; N/A, not applicable.
*Represents availability of items that fit ANGCY criteria for ‘choose most often’( 12 ) in the recreational facility that participated in the multiple case study.
†Although food vendors maintained that these reductions were primarily due to the ANGCY, it was not possible to verify this claim. Other possible explanations include the economic recession that was ongoing during the time of ANGCY implementation and reduced facility usage. Two concessions that had not adopted the ANGCY reported that their revenues declined by 5 % and 9 %, respectively, over the same time frame( 7 ) and their managers attributed these declines to reduced facility usage.
‡These comments reflect manager's perspectives of the combined outcomes of ANGCY implementation in recreational facilities and schools.
§This company had a much higher proportion of ‘choose sometimes’ food items compared with others, at 77 % of items. The proportion of ‘choose sometimes’ items in other companies did not exceed 24 %.