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Background: Supermarkets are the primary source of food for many people yet their full potential as a setting to encourage healthy dietary-related behaviours remains underutilised. Sharing the experiences from research groups who have worked with supermarket chains to evaluate strategies that promote healthy eating could improve the efficiency of building such relationships and enhance the design quality of future research studies. Methods: A collective case study approach was used to synthesise experiences of engaging and sustaining research collaborations with national supermarket chains to test the effectiveness of health-focused in-store interventions. The collective narrative covers studies conducted in three high-income countries: Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Results: We have distilled our experiences and lessons learned into six recommendations for conducting high quality public health research with commercial supermarket chains. These include: (i) using personal contacts, knowledge of supermarket activities and engaging executive management to establish a partnership and allowing time to build trust; (ii) using scientifically robust study designs with appropriate sample size calculations; (iii) formalising data exchange arrangements and allocating adequate resource for data extraction and re-categorisation; (iv) assessing effects at individual/households level where possible; (v) designing a mixed-methods process evaluation to measure intervention fidelity, dose and unintended consequences; and (vi) ensuring scientific independence through formal contract agreements. Conclusions: Our collective experiences of working in non-financial partnerships with national supermarket chains could be useful for other research groups looking to develop and implement supermarket studies in an efficient manner. Further evidence from real-life supermarket interventions is necessary to identify sustainable strategies that can improve population diet and maintain necessary commercial outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco industry public relations campaigns have played a key role in challenges to standardised cigarette packaging. This paper presents a comparative analysis of industry campaigns in Australia and the United Kingdom, which have implemented standardised packaging legislation; Canada, where policy has been adopted but not yet implemented; and the Netherlands, which has considered, but not enacted regulation. Campaigns were identified via Google searches, tobacco industry websites, media coverage, government submissions and previous research; analysis focused on issue framing and supporting evidence. Public relations campaigns in all case study countries drew on similar frames - the illicit trade in tobacco products, the encroaching 'nanny state', lack of evidence for the effectiveness of standardised packaging, a slippery slope of regulation, and inherent threats to intellectual property rights. These claims were supported by industry research, front groups and commissioned reports by accountancy firms, but were not with verifiable research. Independent evidence that contradicted industry positions was overlooked. Similarities in structure and content of public relations campaigns in countries that have enacted or considered regulation points to a strategic co-ordinated approach by cigarette manufacturers. Countries considering standardised packaging policy can expect powerful opposition from the tobacco industry. Tobacco control communities and policy makers can learn from previous experience, and share best practise in countering industry arguments., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)