Chapter 8. Conclusions
This study provides a comprehensive picture of OOH food consumption among adults living in Scotland, highlighting sociodemographic, nutritional, and behavioural differences by level of OOH consumption.
High OOH consumers were younger and more likely to be male, single, and employed full-time. They were only slightly more likely to reside in urban areas. Older adults, married, and retired individuals were more likely to be low OOH consumers. High OOH consumers sourced food frequently from a variety of OOH outlet types, indicating that frequent OOH consumption reflects not just heavier consumption at one outlet type, but a broader reliance on multiple OOH food environments.
OOH food contributed to 21% of total calories consumed. Generally, across all macronutrients as well as saturated fat, fibre, free sugars, and salt, a similar proportion (20-23%) came from OOH with the rest from household grocery shopping. These proportions are higher than those reported in the UK-wide National Diet and Nutrition Survey (2019-2023) which found that OOH food accounted for 12% of total calories consumed (2). The difference could reflect lower OOH consumption during the pandemic years included in the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, a higher intake of OOH food and drink in Scotland compared to the wider UK, a general increase over time as the data reported here are from the end of 2025 (versus 2019-2023), or some combination of these and other factors.
Notably, high OOH consumers had higher average total energy intakes as well as higher intakes of saturated fat, free sugars, and salt compared to moderate and low OOH consumers.
Taste was the dominant motivator for OOH consumption across all groups, with high OOH consumers placing greater emphasis on convenience-related factors such as time saving, accessibility, eating on the move, and avoiding cooking. Qualitative findings reinforced these patterns, highlighting the convenience of OOH food with reduced effort and mental load and framed as ‘buying back time’. Participants commonly described OOH food as a practical response to busy schedules, commuting, fatigue, and childcare demands. This is in line with previous qualitative work by FSS, highlighting similar key drivers such as time scarcity, lower cost of take-out and frozen meals, lack of cooking skills, and single person households for increased OOH consumption (3).
Based on the results of this report, we suggest the following for future policy and research.
Focus on improving the “everyday” OOH food environment
This study shows that food “on the go” from supermarkets, convenience stores, cafés, bakeries, and sandwich outlets is the dominant form of OOH consumption. These OOH outlets matter at least as much as more traditional takeaways and sit-down restaurants. While there are voluntary initiatives such as the Healthy Living Programme, aimed at supporting Scottish independent retailers to offer healthier choices, retail food “on the go” is a critical intervention point. Nearly four in five adults purchased food “on the go” from supermarkets or convenience stores in the past week. There is a strong case for clearer standards for meal deals and hot food counters, reformulation and portion guidance for retail OOH foods. The Eating Out, Eating Well Framework and any future regulatory approaches should explicitly and systematically include retail grab-and-go foods, meal deals, and in-store hot food counters. Other initiatives such as The Food (Promotion and Placement) (Scotland) Regulations 2025, that restricts promotion and placement of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) products or the commitment by major UK supermarkets to increase sales of healthy food are also likely to have a positive impact on OOH retail consumption.
These efforts could initially focus on the top food group contributors to OOH consumption identified in this report, which include:
- Sandwiches including rolls and wraps
- Pasta, rice and other miscellaneous cereals including pizza
- Chips, fried and roast potatoes and potato products
- Chicken and turkey dishes
- Buns, cakes, pastries and fruit pies
- Other milk and cream including milky coffees
Supermarkets remain the biggest source of calories and nutrients
The vast majority (79%) of calories – as well as nutrients – came from household grocery shopping rather than OOH food. This was true even for high OOH consumers (71% of energy from household grocery shopping). Thus, in order to have large scale impacts on diets, improvements to the supermarket retail environment are essential. This aligns with the recommendation by Nesta regarding sequencing policy implementation by prioritising retailers, while mandating data collection for OOH businesses (11).
Delivery apps are now a routine part of the OOH food environment
Over one-third of adults used delivery apps in the past week, mainly for ready-to-eat food, with higher use among high OOH consumers. Digital food environments should be incorporated into the Eating Out, Eating Well agenda more explicitly, including transparency on nutrients, standards around price promotions and default upselling and clearer guidance for partner outlets selling through these platforms.
Higher OOH consumption is associated with higher intakes of energy, salt, sugar, and fat
High OOH consumers consumed more energy, salt, free sugars, fat, and saturated fat than low consumers. A recent analysis by Nesta stated that restaurants, pubs, and bars have the most calorific menus in the OOH sector, with dishes averaging 726 calories (11). They also found substantial variation between businesses with the average calorie content of a menu item at Stonehouse Pizza & Carvery of 1,015 calories, compared with 406 calories at Nando’s (11). Similar work in Scotland also revealed calorie contents of similar dishes was highly variable (12). For example, the calorie content of burger dishes ranged from 250 kcal to 2,577 kcal while the calorie content of salad dishes ranged from 172 kcal to 1,376 kcal (12). The findings strengthen the case for portion size guidance for OOH items, gradual targets for reducing salt, sugar, and fat in OOH foods, and the promotion of smaller default portions and healthier side options. Longitudinal studies evaluating impact of reformulations demonstrate that these measures are successful (13). Modelling studies show a 20% reduction in fat content could substantially lower population energy intake, obesity prevalence, and incidence of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the UK (14). Together, these findings provide strong support for establishing clearer nutrient benchmarks for everyday OOH menu items.
Taste and convenience drive OOH behaviour and can be leveraged to improve consumption of healthier foods
Taste and convenience (time saving, ease of access, not having to cook) are the dominant motivations, especially among high OOH consumers. Information-based approaches alone such as voluntary calorie labelling or consumer education are therefore unlikely to shift behaviour without parallel action on default healthier options, portion size standards, reformulation of everyday items and availability and prominence of healthier grab-and-go choices. Further, high OOH consumers were younger, full-time workers. The qualitative research supported that OOH consumption for many is habitual and routine, not exceptional. OOH policies could be explicitly designed for these busy, time-pressured consumers ensuring healthier options are just as tasty, quick, visible, and convenient as less healthy ones.
The private sector, from supermarket grocery retailers to independent cafés to multinational fast-food chains, plays a critical role in improving local food environments to make it easier for people across Scotland to make healthier choices.
Limitations
There are some limitations to this survey, mainly relating to dietary recalls, including under-reporting that is common to nutrition surveys such as those using Intake24 (2). Specifically, foods eaten outside the home are more prone to being under reported. However, the use of the multiple-pass method is likely to have mitigated some of this bias (15). Second, the limited specificity of the Intake24 nutrient database, which is not brand-specific for most items. This may result in nutrient misclassification, particularly for packaged foods and items consumed across multiple OOH settings. Last, while the sample was broadly comparable to the Scottish population, it was slightly younger, more female, and more urban. Given that these characteristics were associated with OOH consumption (though in opposing directions), results may not be fully representative of the Scottish population.
Future research
An evaluation of OOH consumption in children and young people was out of scope for this project but future research should explore this population subgroup. To improve the resolution and accuracy of reported food and drink, future research could consider integrating an artificial intelligence-based image recognition function (16) into Intake24 to enable real-time data collection rather than relying solely on participant recall. With more specific information on the food and drink consumed, particularly the brand of packaged and OOH items, artificial intelligence combined with large, open-source nutrient composition databases could also improve the accuracy of calories and nutrients derived from intake data (17).
Conclusions
Given the normalisation of OOH eating and its association with higher intakes of nutrients of concern, meaningful progress on diet and healthy weight will not be achievable without structural changes to the everyday OOH sector. This study provides specific evidence to justify expanding the scope and ambition of current OOH policies, especially integrating retail food “on the go”, cafés, bakeries, and digital platforms.