Clamping down on unhealthy food promotions: UK government consults on new price and checkout deal restrictions

14 Jan 2019 --- The UK government has opened a 12-week consultation period asking if there should be more restrictions on how retailers promote food and beverages that are high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS). It is part of proposed new rules to restrict some retailers from bombarding customers with strategically placed promotions on confectionery, such as price drop offers and multiple buys deals around shop entrances, at the end of aisles and at tills.

The consultation is part of the second chapter of the Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan and is designed to reduce the growing number of overweight and obese children in Britain. Currently, one in three children are overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school. Despite the complexity around obesity, experts are clear that the key cause is consistently consuming more calories than needed.

Recent research from the Obesity Health Alliance also found that 43 percent of all food and drink products located in prominent areas were for sugary foods and drinks, with just 1 percent for fruit and vegetables.

The new rules would only apply to deals that promote HFSS food and drinks that are most often consumed by children. They would not stop discounts on household essentials. Smaller shops with a lack of space may also be exempt.

Businesses would also still be free to offer discounts for individual sales of HFSS items, as this does not require consumers to buy more in order to benefit from savings.

Barbara Crowther, Co-ordinator of the Children’s Food Campaign explains how the organization has been campaigning to remove sugar-laden products and other junk foods from supermarket checkouts for decades.

“It’s over twenty years since supermarkets first made voluntary pledges to stop this practice. Yet a typical shop today involves navigating whole chicanes of confectionery and snack promotions in shop entrances, at the ends of aisles, and still around many till areas. Families doing their shopping are also constantly bombarded with price deals encouraging us upgrade to family size packs and multi-buys for £1 or buying two or three packs at a time,” she says.

As a result, Crowther argues, we are eating way too many of these products and what used to be an occasional treat becomes a daily habit. “With child obesity on the rise and more and more sugary and snack foods being consumed, it’s clear that voluntary measures are no longer good enough. Government action to tighten the regulations on how these products are sold is long overdue. No-one is asking shops to stop selling them and we should be free to look for and choose them if we wish, but it would be much healthier if we weren't relentlessly bombarded with screaming price deals and multipacks everywhere we look while shopping, and these products were sold in their own sections,” she notes. 

The Children’s Food Campaign has campaigned to end junk food at checkouts for many years, including getting members of the public to express their opinions directly in-store by leaving calling cards. 

Research in 2013 by the British Dietetic Association showed that 78 percent of the public found junk food at checkouts “annoying.” In November 2018, the Obesity Health Alliance published results of in-store surveys showing 43 percent of all foods displayed in store entrances or at the ends of aisles and checkouts were for sugary foods and drinks.

The Government Consultation on junk food price and place promotions were first announced as part of Chapter Two of the Childhood Obesity Plan. The Children’s Food Campaign will be submitting evidence and canvassing the views of parents on the government proposals as part of its response to the consultation, which is open until April 6, 2019.