Can Dave Lewis really get suppliers to cut the price of healthier food?

Students of Soviet history will know that five-year plans do not always work out well for company pricing strategies and consumer choice.

But Tesco boss Dave Lewis is hoping he can conquer both these two key barriers as the UK’s biggest retailer today launches what could prove to be a landmark battle against obesity.

Tesco has, of course, been working for years with the charities involved, but in joining forces with Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation, Lewis is clearly hoping he can see the same sort of progress when it comes to healthy eating as Tesco has achieved in its laudable efforts to slash food waste.

Mind you, it’s not going to be easy.

In a frank admission, Lewis conceded that one main reason why hard-up families had been less responsive to its healthy eating campaigns was what he called the “unjustified” prices charged by suppliers for a raft of healthy products.

In what many will regard as a brave, if potentially confrontational, move, he accused suppliers in some cases of failing to do enough to tackle obesity by keeping their prices artificially high.

“I look to our supplier bases to ask themselves: are they really being consistent over their own social responsibility and health commitments if there is a price difference when we know that is a barrier,” said the Tesco boss.

With price inflation such a massive issue, there will no doubt be those who say it is rather convenient for Tesco to ask suppliers to cut their prices in the name of the war on obesity.

However, it is also refreshing to see a supermarket like Tesco finally stand up and admit that far too many of its most healthy products are effectively a reserve for the better off.

This has been the argument of health campaigners and consumer lobby groups for many years, and while it is an utter nonsense to suggest that basic healthy products such as fruit and veg are pricing anyone out of healthy eating, the same cannot be said for many of the products at the forefront of today’s healthy eating trends.

Whether it is down to suppliers to drop their prices, or for Tesco to put its money where its mouth is and start ordering more of those lines and let the good old mechanics of supply and demand do the trick on prices, is another matter.

Lewis and his chief product officer, Jason Tarry, were both also adamant that Tesco is not, and never will be, in the businesses of “choice editing”. Yet previous attempts by the government and the industry to skew promotions in store towards healthier products have always foundered on this issue, with retailers unwilling to make a call on what is, or what is not healthy, for fear of trampling on the basic fundamentals of competition and consumer choice.

Ultimately, that same problem may be harder for Lewis and the three charities to get around – even more so than persuading healthy food suppliers that they might like to look again at their prices.