Campaign History

Ten years ago a campaign called Chuck Sweets off the Checkout! was launched. The campaign name came from the title of an article in Slimming magazine, which surveyed all the supermarkets' sweet display policies. We've listed some of the amazing excuses the supermarkets gave to Slimming magazine for stocking sweets at the checkout below!

The campaign was run by Iona Lidington, a community dietitian based in South West London. It was supported by the National Oral Health Promotion Group (who are supporting our relaunch of the campaign), and also received funding from the Department of Health.

When the campaign started in 1992 only two supermarkets had sweet-free checkouts - Sainsbury's and Waitrose. By the end of the campaign in 1995 Tesco and Safeway had also become sweet-free. Sadly, once the pressure was off, every supermarket except Waitrose went back to putting sweets on checkouts.

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At that time only sweets and chocolate were stocked at the checkout, but since then a whole range of not-so-healthy products have appeared on the checkouts, including sugary drinks and fatty, salty crisps.

And the snacks aren't just on the checkout - we found displays of soft drinks placed in front of supermarket checkouts, and shelves of confectionery, crisps and sugary gum at the ends of the aisles where shoppers must queue to pay.

By the end of the last campaign 60% of all supermarket checkouts were sweet-free. This clearly worried the chocolate manufacturers - Mars even warned retailers in the Supermarketing trade journal (15 December 1995) that removing confectionery from checkouts meant that they were losing around 30% of confectionery sales.

Since the previous campaign the amount of soft drinks, crisps and confectionery sold on or near the checkout has increased dramatically. Our unhealthy eating habits, combined with a lack of exercise, has had a dramatic impact on body weight and general health - 24% of adults are now obese and one in five children are overweight. Displaying snacks at the checkout undermines healthy eating advice and deliberately puts temptation in front of shoppers and children. It's time we told the retailers to Chuck Snacks off the Checkout!

Sweets on the checkout, ten years ago

How the supermarkets scored ten years ago
Marks & Spencer	0/10
Co-op	0/10
Safeway	1/10
ASDA	1/10
Tesco	6/10
Sainsbury’s	9/10
Waitrose	10/10

Marks & Spencer
Scored 0/10
Claimed to offer at least one sweet-free checkout at each store, but a test visit found each checkout was flanked with sweets of every description.

A M&S spokesperson told Slimming magazine “We are obviously going to display our products in a way that is appealing to the customer and encourage purchase, be they meals under 300 calories or confectionery".

M&S said that they did realise that a lot of customers shop with young children, and said their aim was to have at least one checkout completely free of confectionery. This wasn't because they were concerned about the unhealthy eating message they were instilling in young children, but because “we recognise there is a potential for young children to reach out and grab brightly-coloured confectionery items!”

Co-op
Scored 0/10
The Co-operative Wholesale Society consisted of over 70 independent retail societies with a different policy at each store. However, a Co-op spokeswoman said that sweets were probably available on the checkouts at all the stores. She explained that they put sweets on the checkouts "because it makes it easier for security staff than having such small items in the main body of the store where customers could easily slip them into their pockets. We also put sweets at the checkout to make it easier for people just popping in for chocolate alone”.

Safeway
Scored 1/10
Safeway put sweets at almost every checkout. Safeway’s Director of Public Affairs, Tony Coombes said: “People who don’t want sweets at the checkout don’t want anything at the checkout. We offer the healthy alternatives in their rightful place alongside the conventional products.”

ASDA
Scored 1/10
ASDA said they allowed many products to compete to be last-minute items at every checkout and these include confectionery, tights, batteries and trolley bags. A spokeswoman said: “We know these items are helpful, last-minute reminders. We treat sweets as a product just like anything else, although we do listen to customer opinion and if we were continually asked for confectionery to be removed then we would review the situation – but it would apply to any product. The sweets we sell at the checkout are available pre-packed elsewhere in the store and the loose versions sell well at the checkout, otherwise we wouldn’t put them there.

Tesco
Scored 6/10
Ten years ago Tesco’s policy was that two checkouts in four have confectionery, and the other two have non-food items.

A spokesman at the time said: “We listen to what our customers say in respect of everything we do, and this policy is a reflection of what families with young children want. The reason we put sweets on half of our checkouts is because space within a store is very expensive. We build stores to a very high standard and we have to utilise that space as best we can to generate the sales we need to make it profitable.”

Sainsbury’s
Scored 9/10
Sainsbury’s had a long-standing policy of not displaying confectionery at the checkouts – but this wasn't because store managers were worried about tempting customers with unhealthy sweets. Slimmer magazine explained that the main reason was that the larger stores had enough space to display all the confectionery lines, and this allowed security staff to have a clear view of the tills.

Waitrose
Scored 10/10
Waitrose were well ahead of the field ten years ago. They said that the place for sweets was on the normal supermarket shelves where they could be best displayed but where “our customers can make the choice if they want and avoid the aisle if they wish.”

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Are you concerned about the marketing and advertising of unhealthy foods to children? There are lots of ways you can make a difference. Click here to find out how you can help!

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