The Children’s Food Campaign (CFC) has criticised three of the UK’s most popular commercial property supermarkets for “undermining parents” in their efforts to encourage healthy eating in their children. Asda, Morrisons and Iceland have been named as the “worst offenders”, with around 80 per cent of checkouts in their individual commercial properties displaying unhealthy sweets, snacks and drinks.
However, the Co-Operative, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco also came under fire for making families with young children queue past unhealthy snack foods by the tills. This, teamed with the fact that not one “traditional format” supermarket promoted healthy foods in the checkout areas, has led the CFC to call for supermarkets to “get the junk off the checkouts once and for all.”
However, the survey, which examined the checkouts of various commercial properties throughout London, found that supermarkets are not the sole offenders for tempting young children with sugary sweets – smaller stores and non-food retailing commercial properties such as WHSmith, Superdrug and even HMV often displayed snack foods at children’s eye level in the queuing areas in front of tills.
Despite several commercial property chains pledging to reduce the volume of junk food available at the tills, a questionnaire sent to the major retailers included in the report found that only one, Sainsbury’s, had established a policy which prevented “impulse confectionary” being sold at the tills. However, this policy does not include “gifting confectionary or seasonal lines”, meaning that Easter eggs or boxes of chocolates are exempt and can be displayed by the checkouts of their commercial properties throughout the country.
CFC spokeswoman Sophie Durham, who also co-authored the report, says; “Impulse purchases at the checkout can add several unplanned calories to a family shopping basket. Supermarkets claim to be responsible retailers, yet they continue to put their profits ahead of families’ health.
“They should stop promoting pester power and help parents by removing promotions of sugary, fatty, salty and calorie-laden snacks and drinks near the checkouts, especially those placed within easy reach of children.”
Only one commercial property surveyed, Waitrose in Oxford Circus, was commended by the report for displaying fresh fruit in areas by the tills where customers queue up before reaching the tills. CFC is now calling for this type of initiative to be adopted by commercial property supermarkets throughout the UK.
They plan to lobby the Advertising Standards Authority to regulate broadcast and print advertisements of unhealthy food and drink products, with the aim of reducing the number of advertising campaigns specifically designed to appeal to children, and preventing high numbers of this type of advert from being shown on television when small children are likely to be watching. Another campaign, attempting to force supermarkets to stop advertising junk food to children, will also be launched at the same time.
Nutritionist Annie Seeley, who co-ordinated the 2002-2005 investigation into snack foods at commercial property checkouts by the Food Commission’s Parents’ Jury, said she was “disappointed but not surprised” at the need for parents to, once again, campaign on the issue.
She added; “Supermarkets seem to have reneged on their promises made after the Food Commission’s investigation a decade ago and returned to the same bad old marketing habits of selling snacks high in sugar, salt and fat at their checkouts.”
