---
title: Grocery Shopping Hungry Only Adds Unplanned Snacks and Sweets, Study of 323 Shoppers Finds
description: A field study of 323 shoppers' receipts found hunger only nudged snacks and sweets, while browsing trips drove far more unplanned buys.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-10-13T09:16:14.536Z
updated: 2026-10-13T09:16:14.546Z
canonical: https://richhealthmagazine.com/article/is-it-bad-to-go-grocery-shopping-hungry
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/supermarket-shopper-trolley-hunger-study-428923.webp
categories: Nutrition
content_type: News
region: Global
publication: Rich Health Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

Feeling hungry in the supermarket made no measurable difference to how often shoppers bought something they had not planned to, across the whole basket, a field study of real grocery receipts has found. Snacks and sweets were the exception. The reason people walked in mattered far more: shoppers who came to browse bought on impulse much more often than those on a routine run.

Sait Durgun, a researcher at Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas) in the Netherlands, led the study with co-authors B. D. Çetinkaya and H. Koç. They asked 323 shoppers to rate their hunger from 0 to 10 straight after shopping and matched the scores to the 3,819 items on their receipts. In [their paper in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://avesis.uludag.edu.tr/yayin/e27ec9a6-aae0-4243-a81d-9e8bf3d48ea7/dont-shop-hungry-a-receipt-based-field-study-of-hunger-shopping-purpose-and-unplanned-purchasing), the authors write that "hunger is widely assumed to drive unplanned grocery purchasing, yet direct behavioral evidence remains limited."

## Hunger Only Raised the Odds of Buying Unplanned Snacks and Sweets

Across everything shoppers bought, how hungry they felt had no significant link to whether an item was unplanned. In snacks and confectionery it did. After the researchers controlled for age and the purpose of the trip, each one-point rise on the hunger scale went with 9% higher odds that a snack or sweet was an unplanned buy, and the effect held after statistical corrections for testing many product categories at once.

Hunger predicted unplanned buying only among younger shoppers. Shoppers aged 55 and over reported the highest hunger in the study, yet they made the fewest unplanned purchases, which the researchers suggest shows experience and self-control overriding appetite.

## Shoppers Who Came In to Browse Bought Far More on Impulse

A University of Bath study found that [shoppers who used their phones in the aisles spent more at the till](https://richhealthmagazine.com/article/using-your-smartphone-at-the-supermarket-can-add-41-to-your-shopping-bill). Durgun's team looked at a decision shoppers make before they arrive. Browsing shoppers made unplanned purchases 69% of the time, against 24% for shoppers on a routine grocery run, and the gap held after the researchers accounted for hunger. In the paper's statistical model, browsers had nearly nine times the odds of an unplanned purchase, making the purpose of the trip the strongest predictor the team found.

"What you plan to do before entering the store may matter more for unplanned purchasing than how hungry you are," Durgun says.

## FAQ

**Q: Does going grocery shopping hungry make you spend more?**
The BUas study did not measure spending. It classified each of the 3,819 receipt items as planned or unplanned and tested whether shoppers' hunger, age or reason for the trip predicted the unplanned ones, so it cannot say whether hungry shoppers left with a bigger bill.