Asda, Morrisons and Iceland named as ‘worst offenders’ for sweet displays

Three leading supermarkets have been named as the ‘worst offenders’ for undermining parents’ efforts to feed their children healthily. The report, from the Children’s Food Campaign (CFC), states that Asda, Morrisons and Iceland display unhealthy food or drink at more than 80 per cent of their checkouts.

The CFC also criticised The Co-op, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose, for making families have to queue past displays of unhealthy snacks to reach the tills.

The Checkouts Checked Out report found that most supermarket branches and high street stores routinely promote unhealthy snacks at their checkout tills and in their queuing areas, despite several having promised a decade ago to reduce this unhealthy marketing practice. In many cases, junk food was positioned at children’s eye level, prompting children to pester their parents for sweets, crisps and soft drinks.

Even more worryingly, bad practices are now spreading to smaller format stores and non-food retailers such as HMV, New Look, Superdrug and WHSmith, who all feature sweets and chocolates in the queuing area near the checkouts, and do not offer healthy alternatives.

The Children’s Food Campaign wants junk food removed from tills in all stores and believes the government should make this a key public health initiative, even widening the remit of the Advertising Standards Authority to include the positioning of unhealthy products.