Dawn Primarolo pats food industry on the back

Retailers’ efforts to assist their customers in making the lifestyle changes needed in the fight against obesity have been welcomed by former health minister Dawn Primarolo.

As the British Retail Consortium (BRC) last week published a report outlining what retailers’ had done to improve the nation’s health, Primarolo commended the whole food and drink supply chain and called on it to continue working with government to make further improvements in people’s diets.
“It’s very encouraging to see the commitment to good health come across so clearly,” said Primarolo. “There is a direct addressing of the issues; recognising that people in the high street have concerns and want this information.”
She added: “Slowly, but surely, we are starting to shape the future - not just in terms of people’s diets and long-term health but commercially too. The educational work that you are doing is dovetailing with government campaigns like Five-a-Day; the Food Standards Agency’s salt programme and, more recently, Change4Life.”
Primarolo also reported plans for the government to sit down with the BRC to share the latest consumer research and information around what people are really saying will help them make healthy choices and what they expect to see in supermarkets and restaurants.
However, she also called on the industry to move further with its reformulation of foods to make products even healthier. “The important thing is we have to build on the momentum. We need to press ahead with reformulation, particularly around saturated fats, salt and sugar reductions; working on new ways to cut these levels while maintaining a product’s taste, shelf-life and consumer appeal.”
The document British retailing: a commitment to health ​highlighted how retailers had responded to customer demand in the UK’s highly competitive grocery market by delivering healthier choices and providing food information to consumers. The BRC claimed the industry’s activities in this field were actually changing what customers buy more comprehensively than legislation ever could.
However, the consumer group Which? argued that food suppliers were still not doing enough to curb the growing obesity epidemic. Which? food campaigner, Clare Corbett, said: “While some retailers have made great strides in helping their customers make healthier choices, others are lagging way behind.
“The urgency of the obesity crisis demands a dramatic increase in the pace of action across the board - from labelling to marketing and from portion size to more healthy options. Barriers to healthy eating must be removed so that people can at last put their good intentions into practice.”
BRC director general Stephen Robertson said: “Achieving healthier diets is about more than targets, labelling rules or promotion bans. This catalogue of evidence shows businesses responding to customer demand and competing on their health credentials, bringing healthy eating initiatives to shoppers more effectively than the law ever could.”
The latest report is the third in a series that reveals the progress achieved since the last report three years ago and assesses more businesses than ever before. Asda, Boots, Burger King, The Co-operative Group, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, McDonald’s, Sainsbury, Tesco and Waitrose have all taken part.