• Anna H Grummon, Jessica L Barrett, Jason P Block, Stephanie McCulloch, Amy Bolton, Roxanne Dupuis, Joshua Petimar, and Steven L Gortmaker.
• Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA; Department of Health Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA. Electronic address: agrummon@stanford.edu.
• Am J Prev Med. 2024 Oct 15.

IntroductionThe US has required chain food establishments-including supermarkets-to display calorie labels on prepared (i.e., ready-to-eat) foods since 2018. Implementation of this supermarket calorie labeling policy reduced purchases of prepared foods from supermarkets, but it remains unknown whether the policy is cost-effective.MethodsIn 2023-2024, this study applied the Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost-Effectiveness Study (CHOICES) microsimulation model to estimate the effects of the supermarket calorie labeling policy on health, costs, and cost-effectiveness over 10 years (2018-2027) for the US population. The model projected benefits overall and among racial, ethnic, and income subgroups. Sensitivity analyses varied assumptions about the extent to which consumers replace calorie reductions from prepared foods with calories from other sources (i.e., caloric compensation).ResultsFrom 2018-2027, the supermarket calorie labeling policy was projected to save $348 million in healthcare costs (95% Uncertainty Interval [UI]: $263-426 million), prevent 21,700 cases of obesity (95% UI: 18,200-25,400), including 3,890 cases of childhood obesity (95% UI: 2,680-5,120), and lead to 15,100 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained across the US population (95% UI: 10,900-20,500). The policy was projected to prevent cases of obesity and childhood obesity across all racial, ethnic, and income groups. The policy was projected to be cost-saving when assuming low and moderate caloric compensation and cost-effective when assuming very high caloric compensation.ConclusionsA policy requiring calorie labels on prepared foods in supermarkets was projected to be cost-saving or cost-effective and lead to reductions in obesity across all racial, ethnic, and income groups.Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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