Healthcare: On the agenda - Stores promote junk food at tills

Supermarkets routinely promote snacks at checkouts and in queuing areas in their stores, and the vast majority of the products are unhealthy and often within easy reach of children, according to a new report called Checkouts Checked Out by the Children's Food Campaign.

About the report

The report was based on a survey of supermarkets and high street chains. It highlighted worst practices, naming and shaming Asda, Morrisons and Iceland, which display junk food on four out of five checkouts.

Recommendations

It was recommended supermarkets should remove junk food from tills, that the Advertising Standards Authority should extend its remit to include product positioning, and that the Government should make removing junk food part of its Public Health Responsibility Deal.

PR strategy

The report went live on the Children's Food Campaign site at midnight on 24 April. Each featured retailer was asked to provide its policy on marketing at checkouts. CFC used its Facebook and Twitter sites to ask people to send images for a 'wall of shame' of checkouts and provided a 'checkout test' card to use when shopping.

Media coverage

The story was covered in the Daily Mail, Metro, The Independent and regional and trade broadcast and press, as well as on BBC news online, ITV and the Huffington Post.

0 - Number of traditional supermarkets surveyed that had healthy food on display near the checkout

77% - Proportion of the maximum recommended intake of added sugar for a seven-year-old provided by one Mars Bar