Restricting the sale of energy drinks to children

Restricting the sale of energy drinks to children

04 March 2019

Ensuring we’re doing as much as possible to help parents promote healthy diets and lifestyles to children has long been one of our main priorities. High levels of caffeine intake in under 16s’ diets may cause a wide variety of harmful effects including sleep disruption, restricting development and in some cases impact their overall health. Whilst several foods contribute to our caffeine intake, we recognise that there is concern surrounding the caffeine content of energy drinks, especially if these are consumer by younger children, that’s why in March 2018 we supported and introduced a ban on the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under 16s across all our stores and online .

Developing a robust policy
High caffeine energy drinks are beverages with a caffeine content of more than 150mg/L. Although up to 400 mg/L each day is generally considered a safe amount for most adults, the level should be much lower for children.

From 1st March 2018, we prohibited the sale of products clearly identified as having a high caffeine content, including some energy drinks, to those under the age of 16 in all our stores and online. This is strictly enforced as part of our ‘Think 25’ policy, which was introduced in 2009.

The ‘Think 25’ policy was specifically designed to ensure that underage shoppers are not exposed to inappropriate products and we were one of the first retailers to introduce this approach. We’ve drawn on this experience to ensure that our approach to restricting the sale of energy drinks and products with high caffeine content is equally robust.

Integration across the business
European Union regulations have long been in place. Since 2014, products containing high levels of caffeine (i.e. above 150mg/L) are required to be clearly labelled as ‘not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women’. We want to encourage all our customers to live healthier lives and believe that it is the responsibility of suppliers and supermarkets to make it as easy as possible to do so. As a result, we have ensured that all our own-brand products contain this warning.

This policy of providing all the information necessary to make a healthy lifestyle an achievable aim for our customers is a key part of our nutritional labelling policy.

Colleagues across all levels of the business have a responsibility to ensure that our caffeine policy is fully integrated and enforced across the UK. Everyone from our buyers to our counter staff are involved in promoting healthy lifestyles to customers and minimising the amount of caffeine in diets.

Reducing the level of caffeine in our products
Of course, we’ve also worked hard to reduce the level of caffeine in our products.

A survey of the dietary habits of our customers showed that caffeine was one of the most common food types that shoppers chose to reduce or remove from their diet.

We have also introduced a range of policies so our customers can eat and shop more healthily including:

- Cutting all multibuy offers, including ‘‘buy one get one free’ promotions on soft drinks, to instead deliver better value by offering lower priced products across all product lines
- Ensuring that no confectionery is promoted in the checkout areas in our supermarkets to encourage our customers to live healthier lifestyles