Morrisons, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi and Lidl have backed Tesco in calling for the government to introduce mandatory reporting on the healthiness of products.
Last month, Tesco CEO Ken Murphy, in a joint letter with leading health charities, called on ministers to tackle the growing obesity crisis by forcing all supermarkets and large food businesses to report on the health of their sales.
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said the retailer will ”continue to support the introduction of mandatory health reporting by the whole food sector”, adding that it will also continue to work with government and industry partners to “help make healthier sustainable diets accessible for everyone”.
Morrisons has also directly backed the call, saying it wanted a standard approach to “help to drive improved health outcomes”, while Waitrose said it was “open to a mandatory approach from the government”, but added “naturally, we’d want to see the detail of any proposals first”.
Asda also reiterated its support, having first called for mandatory health reporting in 2023, adding the move would create a “level playing field” for the industry.
Aldi and Lidl both said they already reported voluntarily on healthier food sales and fully supported the call for it to be mandated.
Tesco’s call, backed by its health charity partners Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK, is understood to be in discussion as part of the government’s new Food Strategy.
Tesco CEO Ken Murphy told The Grocer: “We sincerely hope that the government will act on our call.
“We’ve been reporting on the health of our products voluntarily for some time now and it forms a key part of long-term targets for the executive team.
“So it’s something that we feel is very important.
“Once you start measuring what you are actually doing, it really brings to the surface what you do about it.
“We’ve taken action over a number of years to improve our percentage of healthy sales because it’s a metric we’re held accountable to. We just think it’s good for the industry and it’s good for suppliers
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