Government & Public Sector

NielsenIQ is a trusted data partner helping governments, NGOs, academia, and research organizations around the world modernize and leverage actionable insights with precision and in real-time to help shape, inform and resolve policy outcomes for a healthier, safer, and more equitable future.

Our FMCG retail sales and consumer intelligence data provide a unique consumer perspective that drives meaningful change in the realm of global, regional, and local health, nutrition, and consumer product safety challenges.This data is crucial for effective policy evaluation and ensuring policy effectiveness.

NIQ’s best-in-class data can help you

With our data, policymakers can access to up-to-date information to respond quickly to changing conditions and emerging social and economic issues and policy research topics. Analyze how government policy and strategy affect consumer shopping behavior in real-time, including the following examples:  

Nutrition
  • Understand consumer spending and health journeys across the pre-diagnosis, diagnosis, and post-diagnosis stages.
  • Map the impact of nutrition by charting areas with healthier foods sales in relation to areas of chronic disease.
  • Track price versus unit sales of foods high in fat, sugar, and sodium foods as nutrition recommendations change over time.
  • Measure the impact of GLP-1 drugs on grocer spending and “Food is Medicine” programs.
Supply Chain
  • Measure sales and consumer behavior on tobacco and vaping bans, and estimate the impact of a potential menthol cigarette ban.  
  • Track sales related to Rx to OTC changes by federal or national agencies. Analyze OTC Naloxone sales against drug overdose data.
  • Track product recalls and on-shelf inventory such as cold medicine, baby formula and critical consumer products.
  • Measure last mile e-commerce deliveries and track electric vehicle sales. 
Pricing and Inflation
  • Track consumer purchasing behavior and the impact of food inflation and shrinkflation by measuring decreasing product size alongside stagnant or slightly increasing prices. 
  • Identify changes in prices of goods and services by tracking consumer tradeoffs, such as the inflation- driven decline in healthier food purchases. 
Sustainability
  • Collect required packaging data for EPR reporting: material type, total weight, size, recyclability, and packaging usage per product, categorized by state or region.
  • Track and monitor materials used in beverage containers to comply with Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) requirements.
  • Analyze the sales of potential environmentally damaging products such as aerosols, herbicides, pesticides and items containing PFAS within local, state and national geographic areas.

As inflation rates continue to play out across Europe, the demand for precise inflation rate data has never been more critical.

NIQ has responded by developing a European inflation overview, calculated bottom-up – from the single barcode, by store, by week, up to Total FMCG level.

Food in America Series: Improved health through consumer insights

Woman in yellow coat holding a long receipt in front of a shopping cart

Food in America: A tale of wwo consumers

In America, inequality is evident in many ways and is particularly pronounced in our dietary habits. This divide seems to be expanding, particularly in the realm of food, nutrition, and Americans’ ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Top wellness trends to know for 2024

Discover the latest health and wellness trends for 2024 in our eBook! Explore insights on shifting consumer behaviors and emerging product attributes. Learn about economic influences, burgeoning health trends, the rise of clean labels, consumer sustainability focus, and much more.

Woman in brown coat reads ingredient label on a can holding a shopping cart

What’s next in wellness: Exploring the shopping patterns of budget-conscious consumers

With ongoing economic pressures, participation in the US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) became more important to consumers in 2023.

NIQ data with impact

As diet-related diseases caused by unhealthy food consumption gain more attention, scientists and academics around the world are helping inform and guide policy decisions by conducting research that examines shopping patterns, product labeling, disparate pricing, and even advertising policies. NIQ-powered research continues to be featured in the world of academia. Here’s a sampling of what researchers from Australia to Germany to the United States have discovered. This work underscores the importance of health and nutrition research in advancing evidence-based policy.  

Shrinkflation and Consumer Demand

This paper investigates shrinkflation—the phenomenon of reducing product size while maintaining or slightly increasing prices—in the U.S. retail grocery market. We analyze a decade of NielsenIQ retail scanner data to assess the prevalence and patterns of product size changes across various product categories.  

ReportShrinkflation and Consumer Demand

Urban Food Price Inflation Disparities in the United States

This paper shows that food price inflation varies across rural, urban, and metro counties in the United States. To quantify this disparity, we calculate food price indices using NielsenIQ retail scanner data.  

Report:  Rural-Urban Food Price Inflation Disparities in the United States  

How is Climate Fueling the Thirst for Sweetness?

Amid the current syndemic of obesity and climate change, little is known about the effect of extreme temperatures on dietary behavior. Using exogenous daily variations in weather and a nationally representative consumer panel in the U.S., we find that extreme heat increases the volume purchased of sugary drinks, with persistent impacts even after accounting for inter-temporal purchase shifts.  

Report: How Is Climate Fueling the Thirst for Sweetness?   

Could Google help curb online advertising of unhealthy foods to US children?

Google’s voluntary 2020 action to restrict online food and beverage advertising in the EU and UK would limit online advertising of the most unhealthful products to children in the United States if the policy were applied to the U.S. market. Researchers from New South Wales University, the University of Wollongong, and the University of North Carolina came to this conclusion after using nutrient data from NIQ Label Insight for the top 25 US food and beverage manufacturers.  

Report: Could Google help curb online advertising of unhealthy foods to US children?   

Food Purchasing Pattern and Nutrition Quality Changes in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Consumption of ultra-processed foods has increased in most countries, and high consumption of such foods has been associated with non-communicable diseases. Researchers from the University of Toronto and Fundación Interamericana del Corazón Argentina used NIQ data to discover that automation can simplify and speed the process of monitoring and regulating ultra-processed foods in the global food supply.  

Report: Food Purchasing Pattern and Nutrition Quality Changes in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic    

TDLinx

See how products are performing at the neighborhood level and pinpoint exact store geographies where changes are happening, such as product recalls.

Optimize local insights with Precision Areas:

Regional or state level data can be too broad, capitalize on hyper-local opportunities with the most accurate targeting.

Karen Mooney
Tim Blankshain
Jeff Gregori
Sherry Frey
Zach Matthews
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