Tesco is scrapping sweets and chocolates from all tills across the UK and the Republic of Ireland in a bid to help customers make “healthier choices”.
The retailer announced today it will remove so-called ‘guilt lanes’ from across all store formats by December. It said the move followed shopper research that revealed that two-thirds of customers had said removing confectionery from checkouts would help them make healthier choices when shopping.
“We all know how easy it is to be tempted by sugary snacks at the checkout and we want to help our customers lead healthier lives,” said Tesco CEO Philip Clarke.
“We’ve already removed billions of calories from our soft drinks, sandwiches and ready meal ranges by changing the recipes to reduce their sugar, salt and fat content. And we will continue to look for opportunities to take out more,” he added.
Tesco said it had removed sweets and chocolates from checkouts at larger Tesco stores 20 years ago, but this move went further by ditching the products from checkouts at all stores – including Tesco Metro and Express stores. The retailer will trial a variety of healthier products at checkouts before implementing the full change across all stores at the end of the year.
Though Tesco claims it is the first major retailer to drop guilt lanes from all stores, discounter Lidl announced in January it would scrap sweets from all checkouts, replacing them with fruits and fruit juices. The discounter said it took the decision to remove products from tills after its research revealed 68% of parents were pestered by their children for chocolates at the checkout.
Pressure
Pressure has been mounting on retailers to reduce foods high in fat, salt or sugar, and in October, public health minister Jane Ellison said that cracking down on guilt lanes was back on the government agenda.
In January, the Department of Health said businesses had a “short window of time” to agree a voluntary clampdown on the promotion of foods high in fat, salt or sugar. But this was scrapped last month when retailers refused to sign up to a sweeping range of measures set out under the Responsibility Deal. Instead, the DH said it would allow retailers to take a lead with “individual initiatives”, such as Lidl’s Healthy Checkouts initiative, in the hope it would encourage others to follow suit.
A spokesman for Tesco denied its move today was in response to government pressure, insisting it was reacting to customer feedback. The move was part of a “much wider” effort to help customers live healthier lives as part of its ‘Using Our Scale for Good’ initiative, the retailer said.
Last year Tesco launched a 10-point action plan to tackle obesity, calling on soft drinks suppliers to reformulate products. And this month it wrote to suppliers informing them it wants to remove all added sugar from kids’ soft drinks by February 2015, in a joint campaign with Action on Sugar.
Welcomed
Tesco’s move to scrap guilt lanes has been welcomed by health campaigners and will turn put the spotlight on other retailers to follow suit.
“We applaud Tesco for joining Lidl in chucking junk food off the checkouts,” said Ben Reynolds from food and health charity Sustain, which runs the Children’s Food Campaign.
“We are still waiting for the government to come up with a new plan to protect children’s health by controlling unhealthy food marketing, after the collapse of their ‘Public Health Responsibility Deal’, so supermarkets will have to step up to fill the gap,” he added.
“This is a useful step to making healthier food the easier option. But the question remains, will it be enough to curb the huge rise in diet-related disease facing us in the UK?
“We think that supermarkets have an even greater role in tackling health problems, by re-examining the unhealthy balance of all of their promotions, making these reflect a healthier balance of foods, and offering good deals on more of the healthier options.”
“We hope that other supermarkets will now follow Lidl and Tesco’s lead, and realise that taking action to improve children’s health is not something to fear.”
3 Readers' comments