Healthy eating

Where you shop can have a significant effect on your health and the leading supermarkets are highly variable when it comes to encouraging healthier eating, a new report from the National Consumer Council (NCC) has warned.

A new Health Responsibility Index league table seeks to score retailers on their healthy eating practices.

Stakeholder Response: National Consumer Council

Deirdre Hutton, NCC chairman, said: "Most of us buy most of our food in supermarkets which places a huge responsibility on them to work to improve the diet and health of their customers. 

"Supermarkets have made positive changes but they need to do more. Our report shows that where you shop can have a real impact.  We’ve looked at the major supermarkets and how they promote the food they sell and, although we found some positives, none shone and not a single one did well across all our health indicators. 

"While we weren’t surprised to see Waitrose, a top-end retailer, do relatively well, it’s worrying that we found retailers with a high proportion of lower income shoppers appearing to reinforce the health inequalities between rich and poor. The Co-op was the one company that bucked this trend.

"The big four supermarkets - where we spend three quarters of our national food bill - could really make a difference by cutting salt, sugar and fat, improving labelling and information, doing more to promote healthier foods and taking sweets off the checkout."

Stakeholder Response: Health Development Agency

Dame Yve Buckland, chairman of the Health Development Agency, said:  "This NCC report names and shames some of the top supermarkets chains on their records of encouraging healthier eating. 

 

"One main concern is the finding that the supermarkets with the poorest ratings are those with the larger proportion of low income shoppers. This means that the very shoppers who would benefit most from access to healthier foods and information on healthy eating are the least likely to get it from their usual supermarket. This is a clear example of health inequality, where people who are disadvantaged experience poorer health.

 

"The NCC report is timely coming soon after the recent landmark white paper on public health, to which the Health Development Agency submitted evidence on obesity and other topics. Retailers need to work in partnership with consumers to help encourage healthy eating and to tackle obesity. 

 

"This report is a wake up call – retailers must pull up their socks on providing healthier food, and better information, or else they could find their customers voting with their feet."

 

Stakeholder Response: British Retail Consortium

 

Sarah Winterton, director of public affairs at the BRC, said: "The NCC's report offers an arbitrary snapshot which fails to reflect the level of commitment and investment that major food retailers have made in providing their customers with access to a healthy, balanced diet.

 

"The retail sector has been at the forefront of providing clear, relevant and informative labelling and increasing the availability of healthier options for their customers.

 

"The government's recent white paper on public health acknowledged the positive work the sector has undertaken on this front and retailers will continue to work with the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency on a number of key projects aimed at improving the diet of the UK.

 

"Simplistic and subjective reports fail to add to the debate, but retailers will continue to build on their current work with all key stakeholders to deliver further progress on improving public health through diet."