March 2023

Melton City Council

Sport & recreation Implementing healthy changes Maintaining sales
Lots of bottles of different soft drinks

Overview

Healthy sports and recreation centre cafés

Sports and recreation settings offer an opportunity to have a positive impact on community health, not only through the chance to be physically active but also through the food and drinks available and promoted to customers.

Melton City Council committed to making a positive change by adopting the Victorian Government Healthy Choices Guidelines for sport and recreation centres.

As part of this, they trialed healthier drinks for 3 months by aiming for less than 20% of their fridges with RED drinks (like sports drinks and soft drinks) and at least 50% GREEN drinks (like water and small milks). They also switched from offering RED milkshakes to GREEN smoothies.

We conducted an evaluation to see what the effect of making these changes was for the healthiness of customer purchases, drinks revenue (dollar sales) and retailer and consumer satisfaction with changes.


Download the case study here.


What did we do?

  • We tracked changes in the display of RED, AMBER and GREEN drinks over trial period.
  • We monitored changes in volume of drinks sold and dollar (revenue) sales before and after the trial, taking account of seasonal trends.
  • We interviewed council and café staff before and after the trial to find out about the benefits and challenges of healthy food and beverage changes in community settings, and how opinions changed during the trial.

Results

What did we find?

  • RED drinks dropped from 74% to 37% of available drinks
  • 76% decrease in sales of cold RED drink sales
  • Cold GREEN and AMBER drink sales nearly tripled
  • 5800L less RED drinks sold each year
  • No overall change in cold drinks revenue

What did we learn?

  1. Start with the easy wins
  2. Engage customers through social media
  3. Use support of dietitians or Healthy Eating Advisory Service to help find alternatives and with recipe changes
  4. Appoint a champion to be responsible for changes
  5. Monitor and adapt as you go
  6. Build on successes over time

Council and café staff interviews

Stakeholders were generally in support of improving the healthiness of centre food and drink offerings.

“It shows that council are doing what we can to encourage a healthier community…one of our key objectives is getting people more active…But you know, we’re still selling crap food, so we’re hypocritical.”
(Stakeholder 6, pre-implementation)

“It came in from a holistic global view of healthy food choice across council and promoting healthy food choices, 100% support that.”
(Stakeholder 2, pre-implementation)

The sites used smoothie tastings to get staff on board:

“We did some demonstrations and trials on how to make the smoothies…So rather than saying, “This is how it is going to be, this is how you’re going to do it,” we introduced them to the process.”

(Stakeholder 6, post-implementation)

Stakeholders considered the trial a success while acknowledging the process was ongoing

“[It] hasn’t impacted the revenue stream in a negative way.”
(Stakeholder 5, post-implementation)

“We’ve still got a little bit transition with the local school kids and they want certain things and they’re missing the milkshakes, but other than that, generally positive feedback from staff and customers.”
(Stakeholder 2, post-implementation)


Feeling inspired?

For more information on how to make a healthy change in your organisation contact the Healthy Eating Advisory Service.

This program was supported by the Victorian Government, Melton City Council, Wyndham City Council and Deakin University (CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B).


Relevant case studies

Explore all case studies
Fifth Avenue Childcare Centre
Posted 30/03/23
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Gippsland Lakes Community Health Children’s Centre
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Bridge Rd Early Learning Centre
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Bloom Early Learning
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Matron Swinton Childcare Centre
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Heany Park outside school hours care
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World 4 Kids / Big Childcare
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Dandenong West Primary School
Posted 30/03/23
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Maryborough Education Centre
Posted 30/03/23
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  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Darley Primary School
Posted 30/03/23
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  • +1
Clonard College
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  • +1
St Brendan’s Catholic Primary School
Posted 30/03/23
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Bruthen Primary School
Posted 30/03/23
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Red Cliffs Bakery
Posted 30/03/23
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  • Implementing healthy changes
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Marlborough Primary School
Posted 30/03/23
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Buckley Park College
Posted 30/03/23
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Beaumaris Primary School
Posted 29/03/23
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  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
YMCA Victoria Food Pricing Initiative
Posted 29/03/23
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  • +1
Alfred Health – Sugary Drink Trials
Posted 29/03/23
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Healthy Choices – Financial impacts – City of Melbourne
Posted 29/03/23
  • Workplaces & Tertiary education
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
YMCA Victoria
Posted 29/03/23
  • Sport & recreation
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Western District Health Service
Posted 29/03/23
  • Health services
Central Gippsland Health
Posted 29/03/23
  • Health services
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
East Wimmera Health Service
Posted 29/03/23
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  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Perridak Burron Early Learning
Posted 29/03/23
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  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Wimmera Health Care Group (Sugar sweetened beverages)
Posted 28/03/23
  • Health services
  • Implementing healthy changes
Northeast Health Wangaratta (Sugar sweetened beverages)
Posted 28/03/23
  • Health services
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Rochester & Elmore District Health Service
Posted 28/03/23
  • Health services
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Latrobe Regional Hospital
Posted 28/03/23
  • Health services
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
St John of God Ballarat Hospital
Posted 17/03/23
  • Health services
  • Promoting healthy eating
  • +1
Alfred Health
Posted 17/03/23
  • Health services
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Rural Northwest Health Service – Yarrick Cafe
Posted 16/03/23
  • Health services
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +2
Western District Health Service (GenR8change)
Posted 16/03/23
  • Health services
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  • +1
University Hospital Geelong, Barwon Health
Posted 16/03/23
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Latrobe Leisure
Posted 16/03/23
  • Sport & recreation
  • Implementing healthy changes
Winchelsea Swimming Pool
Posted 16/03/23
  • Sport & recreation
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Aligned Leisure
Posted 16/03/23
  • Sport & recreation
  • Implementing healthy changes
Western Leisure Services
Posted 16/03/23
  • Sport & recreation
  • Maintaining sales
  • +1
Honesty Snacks and Department of Health and Human Services (Vic)
Posted 16/03/23
  • Food industry
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre
Posted 16/03/23 • 1 mins read
  • Sport & recreation
  • Implementing healthy changes
  • +1
Deakin University
Posted 15/03/23
  • Workplaces & Tertiary education
  • Implementing healthy changes

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