Science on Tap: Maria DeNunzio’s Recipe for a Sustainable Grocery Store

How do the products and layout of grocery stores impact their local communities? That’s one of the questions Maria DeNunzio addressed at the January 23, 2025, Science on Tap event “Food for Thought: How Retail Spaces Shape Our Choices and the Planet.” DeNunzio explained the nuanced psychology behind grocery shopping and how stores could motivate consumers to make more environmentally sustainable purchases. 

    DeNunzio, a food scientist-turned-Food Systems Ph.D. candidate, surveyed the audience on their grocery-buying practices. Participants shared that their decisions change based on affordability, geographic convenience, and other factors. DeNunzio discussed the audience’s preferences and shared her most recent grocery haul: an easy-to-prepare frozen meal, tortilla chips that were conveniently on the endcap display at the end of an aisle, tuna packets that were on sale, and a bag of potatoes to use as a staple ingredient.

    Each of these buying decisions, according to DeNunzio, was aided by the grocery store’s meticulous planning, which encourages consumers to find and purchase specific types of food. With the Super Bowl coming up, she speculates that displays of chips in the shape of field goals will be popping up in many stores. Outside of yearly cultural events, stores will turn up lights on produce to make items look more appealing while discounting the “uglier” produce. Even the placement of this discounted produce matters: DeNunzio described how her local grocery store sequesters the discounted produce to a dim corner of the store, instead incentivizing purchasing the full-priced food.

    DeNunzio then turned the question of grocery store design to the participants: What does their ideal store look like? Participants brainstormed in groups, some writing wish lists and others drawing floor plans. When table representatives shared their ideal stores, many expressed wanting increased convenience and affordability, but other requests included more international food, homemade desserts, and casual spaces for gatherings — and a child in the audience said they would want race car shopping carts. All of these desires highlighted one unifying theme: It can be hard to grocery shop!

    Fortunately, there are groups working to make grocery shopping easier for consumers. Currently, DeNunzio is doing a project with a statewide network of 130 retailers to make fresh fruits and vegetables more accessible to low-income families. Talking to these retailers revealed how some of them see their work as aligning with climate action, too; they could reduce packaging or use solar panels but are limited by time and money. DeNunzio said that these retailers want to do more for communities but also need more help to do so. Some of this help could come from food access programs, but there is still a lot of work needed to determine the logistics of this possibility. And each business or food purchasing decision comes with trade-offs, she said. Removing plastic bags from a local store could alienate consumers who don’t bring their own bags, which could push them towards using a competing store, a customer loss that hurts the grocer. In light of these competing considerations, DeNunzio posed one essential question to grocery store owners and managers: “What are you prioritizing?”

    Thank you to Maria DeNunzio for sharing her story and to Rising Silo Brewery for hosting! Science on Tap is a monthly event sponsored and supported by the Center for Communicating Science and by Virginia Tech's chapter of Sigma Xi. Come out to our next event at 5:30 p.m. February 27, 2025, to learn how octopus leg movement is controlled and what that means for robot design.

By Bria Weisz, Center for Communicating Science graduate assistant