Key Summary
Food retailers and manufacturers will be told to “make the healthy choice the easy choice” in a world-first partnership between government and industry to tackle the obesity epidemic and ease pressure on the NHS as part of the Plan for Change.
The new scheme, announced on Sunday (June 29) by the Department for Health and Social Care, is part of the forthcoming 10-Year Health Plan, through which the government is seeking to shift from sickness to prevention to alleviate the burden on the NHS.
Businesses will be given the freedom to meet the standard however works best for them.
Measures could include reformulating products and tweaking recipes, changing shop layouts, offering discounts on healthy foods, or changing loyalty schemes to promote healthier options.
Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, said, "Obesity has doubled since the 1990s and costs our NHS £11 billion a year, triple the budget for ambulance services. Unless we curb the rising tide of cost and demand, the NHS risks becoming unsustainable.
"The good news is that it only takes a small change to make a big difference. If everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by around 200 calories a day – the equivalent of a bottle of fizzy drink – obesity would be halved.
"This government’s ambition for kids today is for them to be part of the healthiest generation of children ever. That is within our grasp. With the smart steps we’re taking today, we can give every child a healthy start to life.
"Our brilliant supermarkets already do so much work for our communities and are trying to make their stores heathier, and we want to work with them and other businesses to create a level playing field."
The policy will see all big food businesses report on healthy food sales. This will set full transparency and accountability around the food that businesses are selling and encourage healthier products.
The government will then set targets to increase the healthiness of sales in communities across the UK and work with the Food Strategy Advisory Board on the sequencing of this policy.
Ken Murphy, Tesco Group CEO, said, "At Tesco, we have measured and published our own healthier food sales for a number of years now - we believe it is key to more evidence-led policy and better-targeted health interventions.
"That’s why we have called for mandatory reporting for all supermarkets and major food businesses and why we welcome the Government’s announcement on this. We look forward to working with them on the detail of the Healthy Food Standard and its implementation by all relevant food businesses."
Simon Roberts, CEO of Sainsbury’s commented, "We’re passionate about making good food joyful, accessible and affordable for everyone and have been championing the need for mandatory health reporting, across the food industry for many years.
"Today’s announcement from Government is an important and positive step forward in helping the nation to eat well. We need a level playing field across the entirety of our food sector for these actions to have a real and lasting impact."
