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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #40: Grocery stores expanding their product offerings

Read my review of “Just Eat” in today’s Wall Street Journal

The number of products in U.S. supermarkets swelled from an average of 8,948 in 1975 to 14,000 in 1980 and about 44,000 in 2014 (it has since fallen to 28,112 in 2019). A 2015 National Geographic article pointed out that “the sheer volume of available choice is enough to send shoppers into a state of information overload.” The article cited brain-scan experiments showing that “after about 40 minutes of shopping, most people stop struggling to be rationally selective, and instead began shopping emotionally—which is the point at which we accumulate the 50 percent of stuff in our cart that we never intended buying.”