Ashwin Prasad, the chief executive of Tesco’s UK arm, writes: ‘We, and the whole food industry, can and must innovate and find new ways to encourage healthier choices’
Good health starts with good food. We all know the importance of getting a balanced diet – for our health, and the health of those we care about. But worryingly, the latest data shows many of us aren’t getting the nutritious diet we need. Fewer than one in five adults and one in 10 children regularly eat the recommended five-a-day.
That needs to change. Getting enough fruit and veg can reduce the risk of longer-term health conditions, like heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer. As the Government’s new food strategy rightly identifies, the more people we can help to eat their five-a-day, the more people we can help to live healthier lives.
That means we need to listen and understand the barriers people face to getting their five-a-day. Over the last year, we have been working with the British Nutrition Foundation to understand in more detail the challenges our customers face when it comes to eating healthily. We spent time in communities up and down the UK, speaking to community members, including youth and charity workers, council members, and health professionals.
Affordability is of course front of mind for many. But it’s clear that price alone won’t help customers to shop a healthier basket. We want to help our customers make small changes that amount to big health benefits for themselves and their families.
People told us they want help with ideas and inspiration, or need more confidence in cooking healthy meals. And they want to see young people empowered to make healthier choices through access to fruit and veg and education.
We, and the whole food industry, can and must innovate and find new ways to encourage healthier choices, so we can put healthy food in the hands of customers, more of the time. That’s why at Tesco we are launching a campaign to help families eat their five-a-day. We are investing in new initiatives to inspire and incentivise our customers to make healthier choices easier for everyone.
That includes new personalised Clubcard Stamps for millions of customers on fruit and veg that will be tailored to their buying habits, Clubcard Challenges on frozen and tinned fruit and veg and pulses, additional Clubcard prices and offers in store, and refreshed recipe inspiration online. That’s on top of long-running promotions on fruit and veg, like Fresh 5, and two thirds of our Aldi Price Match products being healthy.
We’ll also be building out our support for kids to get off to a healthy start in life. As well as providing millions of pieces of fruit and vegetables to thousands of children in 400 schools across the UK this year through our Fruit & Veg for Schools programme, we’ll be giving away free fruit for kids in selected stores across the UK during the school holidays.
We’re committed to doing our part, now and in future – but we won’t solve this alone. It’s time for the whole food industry to come together with the Government and wider society so that great nutrition is something everyone can enjoy.
As Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting says: “Obesity has doubled since the 1990s and costs our NHS £11 billion a year, triple the budget for ambulance services. Unless we curb the rising tide of cost and demand, the NHS risks becoming unsustainable. The good news is that it only takes a small change to make a big difference. If everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by around 200 calories a day – the equivalent of a bottle of fizzy drink – obesity would be halved. This government’s ambition for kids today is for them to be part of the healthiest generation of children ever. That is within our grasp. With the smart steps we’re taking today, we can give every child a healthy start to life.
“Our brilliant supermarkets already do so much work for our communities and are trying to make their stores heathier, and we want to work with them and other businesses to create a level playing field. Through our new healthy food standard, we will make the healthy choice the easy choice, because prevention is better than cure. By shifting from sickness to prevention through our Plan for Change, we will make sure the NHS can be there for us when we need it.”
Only through collective and co-ordinated action across the whole of the food industry can we make an impact at scale. Doing so will not only help millions of families to live healthier lives. It will also boost our economy, reduce the number of people living with long-term health conditions linked to poor diet, and relieve pressure on our health services.
The Government’s plans to mandate food businesses to report on healthy food sales and take action to increase them are a positive step. We look forward to working with them on the details of the Healthy Food Standard and its implementation by all relevant food businesses to create a truly level playing field. We’re committed to playing our part, working with the wider food industry and our health charity partners.
We’ve shown what’s possible when we work together as an industry. Through further collaboration and innovation, we can work to put healthy choices into the hands of customers, wherever they live, more of the time.