Customer choice, health and nutrition
Supermarkets have a responsibility to help customers make the right choices. We do that by offering a diverse range of products at affordable prices and providing the information people need.
Our position
Supermarkets have made good quality and good value available to everyone, whether for food, clothes, TVs or home furnishings. Consumers have more choice and shop around more than ever before, making our marketplace incredibly competitive.
At the same time, awareness of issues such as health and nutrition, the environment and ethical trade is growing and customers increasingly want products and information that help them with these issues.
Critics are concerned that supermarkets have encouraged a proliferation of undesirable and unhealthy products such as ready meals, which they say lack nutritional value and often contain too much salt, sugar, saturated fat and additives. Some people also believe that the availability of cheap alcohol in supermarkets encourages excessive drinking. Our critics argue that, by extolling the importance of consumer choice, supermarkets pass the responsibility for helping to tackle these public policy issues to their customers and take no responsibility themselves.
We do take responsibility for helping to tackle these issues, but we believe in providing customers with the information and opportunity to choose whatever is best for them. Our approach is to make healthier, ethical and green products more affordable, more clearly labelled and more attractive for customers. We believe this is the most powerful and sustainable route to positive behaviour change. We do not believe in making decisions for customers - they are free to make their own choices based on the products and information we provide.
Everyone is welcome at Tesco and the range, quality and value of our products reflect this. Our core brands run from Value to Finest, with additional ranges that meet specific needs, such as Organics. We customise the ranges available in different countries to reflect the local needs of the customer.
Health and nutrition
Healthy eating is a priority wherever we operate, as diets contribute to problems including malnutrition, heart disease and obesity. In particular, eating healthily on a budget remains a challenge. We want to help our customers, and work with governments, NGOs and others to tackle poor health and nutrition. In line with this we have engaged closely with the authors of the UK government's Foresight Unit Report on Obesity, to share our knowledge of the issues and discuss further areas for focus.
Our health strategy is based on three objectives:
- providing better information on the nutritional value of products, and on how customers can improve their health;
- making healthy options more accessible, through pricing and promotions, product improvements and healthy ranges; and
- making it simpler and more attractive to lead an active lifestyle (see Community impact - Community investment).
Responsible alcohol sales
The vast majority of people consume alcohol responsibly and should not be penalised for the actions of less responsible drinkers. However, we accept that we have a role to play in addressing the problems of antisocial and underage drinking. We already have strict policies to prevent underage alcohol sales, and we want to make sure alcohol is responsibly priced. But we recognise that there is a concern about the price of alcohol, and that industry must play its part in addressing this concern. To be effective, any action must involve the whole industry. However, competition law prevents businesses discussing anything to do with price with each other and imposes severe penalties on those who breach it. It would help us all to move forward in this area if government could lead discussions with the industry, so that retailers may avoid falling foul of such laws.
