Our ongoing commitment to providing clear nutritional labelling for our customers

Our ongoing commitment to providing clear nutritional labelling for our customers

25 July 2019

We all know that the UK is stuck in the middle of an obesity crisis, almost a third of 2-15 year olds are overweight or obese[1] !

We think it’s time that the food industry took more responsibility to promote healthier lifestyles to customers. It’s hugely important for all retailers to work alongside suppliers and the government to ensure that our customers have enhanced understanding and access to all the nutritional information they need to live a healthier lifestyle. We think that ensuring our products are accurately and simply labelled is crucial to aiding efforts to resolve the health crisis hitting the UK and help our customers to live well for less.

Our journey so far

Over the past 40 years we have led the way in helping our customers to live healthier lives and we’re proud of our strong track record of providing clear nutritional information in order to enable the public to make informed choices.

As part of our vision to be the UK’s most trusted retailer, we believe that building trust is vital to continue offering our customers fantastic service and being fully transparent about our products is integral to this.

Whether it’s alerting our customers to products with added salt or providing more information on potential allergens, we’re always on the lookout for new ways to help. In fact, we were the UK’s first supermarket to introduce the pioneering traffic light system, guaranteeing that our customers possess enhanced awareness of exactly what our products contain and offering them more choice than ever before. Whilst front of back labelling remains voluntary, we’re delighted that many of our competitors followed our lead and introduced similar policies to help provide more information to UK shoppers.

What are we doing to enhance our customers’ understanding of our products?

We have pledged to include full nutritional information on all our food and drink products to ensure that our customers have all the facts needed to make an informed decision.

Here are just a few of our market-leading initiatives demonstrating our commitment to promote healthy eating and lifestyles:

• In the 1980s we incorporated ‘added salt’ and ‘added sugar’ logos onto our product packaging, enabling our customers to make a healthier choice
• In 2005 Sainsbury’s launched a pioneering new nutrition label - applying multiple traffic light labelling to front of pack. Using criteria developed by Sainsbury’s nutritionists and verified by an independent expert panel, food products were labelled with a traffic light label showing how much fat, saturated fats, sugar and salt are in that food. High levels (red), medium (amber) and low (green) percentages for these ingredients.
• In 2006 we extended our traffic light labelling system to include children’s products and introduced the “apple stamp” logo to signify the healthiest product within a category
• In 2015 we introduced calorie labelling on our menu boards at our in-store cafes
• Between 2011 and 2015 we reduced salt content by 14% in our own-brand products
• In 2018, we launched an online tool with Food Maestro, enabling those with allergies or intolerances to identify the suitability of different products when shopping online
• In 2019, to promote government advice on eating two portions of fish a week we introduced the “2 a week fish” logo to alert customers to the initiative and promote consumption

Working together

Nutritional labelling can quickly become overly complex for customers, which is why consistent labelling practices across the board are so important. This approach would also allow retailers to continue to evolve their offerings whilst simultaneously improving awareness of healthier alternatives.

How this level playing field will be created remains up for debate; but whether it’s reliant on cross-industry collaboration as part of the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) or introduced through regulation set by the government, we believe that this approach is crucial.

We believe that it is far more helpful for our customers to include nutritional information on how a product is consumed; whether that means per slice, or details of fat content once cooked. This not only develops trust; it also provides customers with a true reflection of the nutritional content ensuring they are in the best position to make a healthier choice for themselves and their family.

In order to truly help improve the country’s diet, nutritional labelling should be something that’s applied across the whole food environment, including out-of-home eating in restaurants. This would ensure that customers are more in control of their eating habits and general health than ever before – a vital step in tackling the UK’s obesity crisis. We’ve worked hard to ensure that our cafés offer a healthy alternative for our families and were delighted that our children’s menus have been named the healthiest amongst UK supermarkets in a study by the Soil Association.

We’ve led the way in demonstrating how retailers can help customers make informed nutritional decisions for over 40 years and we have no plans to stop anytime soon.

 

 


 

[1] https://files.digital.nhs.uk/5B/B1297D/HSE%20report%20summary.pdf