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: