This is a cluster randomized controlled trial of 30 food pantries affiliated with the Greater Boston Food Bank to test the use of behavioral economics (BE) tools to encourage food pantries to implement the Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) program, with the goal of fostering accurate use of SWAP traffic light labels on pantry shelves and increasing the healthfulness of foods chosen by pantry clients. Primary outcomes will be assessed at 6 and 12 months to compare the implementation and effectiveness of the SWAP program in the intervention vs. control pantries.

This study will test the use of behavioral economics (BE) tools to encourage food pantries to implement the Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) program, with the goal of encouraging pantries to use SWAP traffic light labels on pantry shelves and increase the healthfulness of foods chosen by pantry clients. The study design is a 12-month cluster RCT of 30 Greater Boston Food Bank partner pantries comparing a basic SWAP implementation strategy (control, n=15) with a BE-enhanced SWAP implementation strategy (intervention, n=15). Primary outcomes assessed at 6 and 12 months will be implementation of the SWAP program within pantries and improvement of client food choices and dietary quality. At the end of 12 months, the BE-enhanced SWAP implementation strategy will be adapted, updated, and offered to the 15 pantries assigned to control (waitlist) at baseline. The 15 intervention pantries will be followed without further intervention.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Food pantries enrolled in the study will be partner agencies of the Greater Boston Food Bank that are maximum client choice, are located within approximately 1 hour driving time of Boston (for logistical feasibility), and are not actively using traffic-light nutrition ranking.
• Food pantry clients that complete assessments must be 18 years or older and speak English or Spanish.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Food pantries that are not affiliated with the Greater Boston Food Bank and are not maximum client choice.
• Food pantry clients that do not speak English or Spanish.

Data collected from pantry client assessments at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months will be shared. This includes de-identified survey data, including dietary score data, client basket data with food identified as green, yellow, or red-labeled, and skin carotenoid levels. De-identified and aggregated food pantry ordering data, which is secondary data collected from the food bank ordering, will also be shared. The data and details related to our analytic plan and study measures will be deposited in a publicly accessible data repository, such as the Harvard Dataverse, a NIH-approved Scientific Generalist Data Repository free to researchers inside and outside of the Harvard community.

Analytic plans and details will be made available no later than the official publication date of a peer-reviewed article and will be available for at least five years after the study period ends. De-identified data from the study will be made publicly available through the data repository within 90 days of the closeout of the project and made available according to the Harvard Dataverse's data retention policy. Additionally, data for each publication will be deposited by the time of publication.

In accordance with the data repository methods, completion of a data use agreement form, that stipulates data sharing under an IRB-approved protocol, will be required for accessing the data.