UK supermarkets have been accused of encouraging people to consume more sugar, despite the huge concern about its significant role in causing obesity, rotten teeth and type 2 diabetes.
Food campaigners claim supermarkets are doing little to reduce the amount of sugar they sell across their product ranges and are misleading people about how much they are doing to tackle obesity.
In a report, the scientific research group Action on Sugar and environmental charity Global Feedback condemn leading supermarkets including Tesco, Aldi and Waitrose for increasing the amount of sugar people consume, while pretending to be committed to helping them adopt healthier diets.
Between them, Britain’s top 10 retailers account for 95% of all food sold.
In the report, the groups say: “The major companies, which guide daily purchasing decisions – supermarkets – continue to encourage sugar consumption through their drive for higher sales, despite paying lip service to healthy eating goals.”
Asked if they had set a target to cut back the total amount of sugar they sell overall across their range of foodstuffs, only one of the 10 supermarkets – Morrisons – told the campaigners that it had. Many others instead highlighted their plans to increase sales of healthier products, such as breakfast cereals and yogurts containing less sugar.
But, the report adds: “Promoting sugar reduction success without reducing sugar sales misleads the public and government to think that retailers are part of the solution to obesity and diet-related ill health, while in fact being part of the problem.”
None of the 10 chains provided evidence that they had successfully cut the total amount of sugar they sell. Iceland and Asda did not respond to a survey the two groups undertook.
The total amount of sugar bought in Britain is still rising, even though successive governments and health experts have been warning for years about the damage it is wreaking, for example through highly sugared drinks. The UK imports 2.21m tonnes of sugar every year, which by head of population amounts to three times the safe limits of public consumption.
The final report of the government’s sugar reduction programme, published in December, found that the average amount of sugar in products such as cereals, cakes and biscuits had gone down by 3.5% since the initiative was launched in 2017.
“It’s clear most of Britain’s supermarkets are doing far too little to reduce the amount of sugary products they sell, despite sugar being a scourge of public health and notorious cause of ill-health, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and tooth decay,” said Graham MacGregor, the chair of Action on Sugar and a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London.
“It’s time for the government to get tough with supermarkets and force them to reduce the dangerously, stubbornly high levels of sugar in their products in order to benefit public health.”
The campaigners want ministers to force supermarkets to disclose how much sugar they sell overall and to reduce that total by 50% by 2025 and two-thirds by 2030.
Henry Dimbleby, the government’s food tsar, resigned from his role last month in protest at the government’s “insane” lack of action against Britain’s growing obesity problem.
Ministers’ “ultra-free market ideology” and refusal to force food producers to reduce the amount of fat, salt and sugar in their products was proving ruinous for public health, he said.
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Dimbleby told the Sunday Times: “Winston Churchill talked about the greatest asset a nation can have is the health of its people. He understood that. Yet, somehow, this new version of the Tory party thinks that these aren’t things it should be getting involved in, and it’s just insane.”
Dimbleby quit as the lead non-executive director of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), a role he had held since 2018.
In a leading government-commissioned report into food and obesity Dimbleby, the co-founder of the Leon restaurant chain, urged ministers to compel large food manufacturers to report on sales of products high in fat, salt or sugar, to encourage them to make their foodstuffs healthier.
The World Health Organization has identified obesity – with which sugar has been closely linked – as a contributory cause of 13 types of cancer.
The Food and Drink Federation, which represents food producers and retailers, says that its member firms “are making significant progress” in playing their part in the fight against obesity.
In an article in the Grocer, Kate Halliwell, the FDF’s chief scientific officer, said: “Our companies’ products contribute 13% fewer calories, 15% fewer sugars and 24% less salt to the average shopping basket than they did eight years ago.”
The Department of Health and Social Care was approached for comment.
