In June the Government confirmed rules banning multibuy deals on food and drink high in fat, salt, or sugar including buy one get one free deals will be delayed for another two years until October 2025.
Anna Taylor, executive director of The Food Foundation, commented: “Levels of food insecurity remain worryingly high, with 17% of households experiencing food insecurity in June 2023. This is over twice as high as levels in January 2022. With food price inflation falling only very slowly, we need both Government and retailers to urgently step up and support households through the cost of living crisis.
“That support needs to make sure that families are able to access and afford healthy staples such as fruit and veg. Running promotional deals on junk food simply makes it even harder for many to access and afford nutritious food.”
The Food Foundation believes this analysis shows that action needs to be taken to rebalance marketing and promotional spend to ensure that healthy foods like fruit and veg are better promoted to customers. A third (33%) of food and soft drink advertising spend goes towards confectionery, snacks, desserts and soft drinks compared to just 1% for fruit and vegetables.
Katharine Jenner, director of the Obesity Health Alliance, said: “It’s coming up to three years since then Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he would take bold steps to prevent obesity, which results in poor health such as cancers, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
“Yet Government delays to restricting multibuy offers, which do not save people money and are creating shopping baskets full of unhealthy food. Supermarkets should put healthier foods on special offers, ones that are on people’s shopping lists and that don’t hurt their health, for a healthier Britain.”