How are HFSS promotions evolving? And is the multibuy even still relevant?

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After the government pushed back the ban on multibuy promotions on HFSS products to next October, Tesco was the first to say it would go ahead and stop them entirely this year anyway

After the government pushed back the ban on multibuy promotions on HFSS products to next October, Tesco was the first to say it would go ahead and stop them entirely this year anyway. Sainsbury’s had in any case phased out multibuy offers on all food and drink in 2016 in favour of “regular low prices”. And with other supermarkets also reducing promos in HFSS categories every year since 2019, it has led some to argue the ban isn’t actually necessary.

“The supermarkets have been reining in multibuys for many years now,” says Bryan Roberts, global insight leader at IGD. “They’ve been focused on more general price cuts often within loyalty card promotions or EDLP (everyday low price) strategies, rather than multibuys.”

This move away from multibuys has partly been in response to product shortages caused initially by panic-buying in the pandemic, and continuing via post-pandemic supply chain disruption, as well as concerns over food waste.

But it is clear the supermarkets are far from weaning themselves off HFSS multi-buy promotions altogether. As The Grocer’s analysis of Assosia data shows, there are close to 2,000 bogof-style promotions across HFSS categories in the major supermarkets, meaning 11% of all 17,687 products in these aisles are promoted this way.

Asda is the most active user of HFSS multibuys, accounting for almost a third of the total and has cut relatively few since before the pandemic. Today, 16% of products in its HFSS aisles are on multibuy promotion.

Next year’s ban on multibuys isn’t expected to be the most significant change from the HFSS rules. Figures compiled by IRI for The Grocer earlier this year suggest they will account for just 5% of the overall impact on sales from the original proposals if they go ahead. But it does seem like Asda could be waiting to see if it goes ahead at all before making the decision to cut back on a valuable income stream.

Sainsbury’s, by contrast, is the most compliant thanks to its 2016 pledge to eradicate multibuys – except for special occasions. While there has been a slight uptick in HFSS aisles at least over the past 12 months, these still account for just 4% of the range and are considerably fewer than any of its competitors.

Across all retailers, the allure of multibuy promotions is clearly stronger in some categories than others. Chilled ready meals, for example, are hotspots for multibuys, which make up 28% of the category and grew in number from 524 to 581 in the past year. By contrast, single price promos in the category fell. Cereals have also seen the number of multibuys grow from 173 last year to 218, no doubt helped by a large degree of reformulation to make products HFSS-compliant. One in 10 products in the category is now on a multibuy promotion.

But the multibuy allure is waning in some classic HFSS categories, no question. In chocolate, the number of multibuys are down from 231 last year to 109 and the mix has fallen from 35% to 22%. In sugar confectionery it’s 18% vs 60%, with multibuys slumping from 89 to just 15. In ice cream it’s 14% vs 28%, with just 46 multibuys this week vs 104 last year. And in biscuits and cereal bars, multibuys share has fallen from 17% to 3% of promos, with just five across the five full-service supermarkets.