Supermarket is not yet a healthy food environment

Unhealthy products still predominate in supermarkets' offers, range and layout. This is according to Questionmark's recently published Superlijst Gezondheid 2022. Supermarkets promised in the National Prevention Agreement (2018) to encourage consumers to eat and drink healthier. This research shows that supermarkets are not keeping these commitments. This is worrying because half of adults and 1 in 6 children in the Netherlands are overweight.

Superlijst Gezondheid 2022 compares what eight Dutch supermarkets are doing to encourage consumers to eat and drink healthily. The report's findings underline that self-regulation is not working. It is high time the government enforced measures through legislation, according to Questionmark.

Hardly any improvements

Few improvements have been made since the previous measurement in 2020:

• In all advertising brochures, more than 80% of the products are still outside the five basic food groups; In most supermarkets (Aldi, Coop, Jumbo, Lidl and Plus), the share of unhealthy products in advertising brochures has even increased;
• Almost all supermarkets, except Dirk, entice their customers to make unhealthy choices at the checkout. Often those unhealthy products are specifically aimed at children;
• None of the surveyed supermarkets, except Lidl, make visible whether they comply with the NPA agreements;
• Sweet children's drinks are still often promoted. Dirk still promotes these products the most (5 out of 8 leaflets), followed by Albert Heijn and Aldi (4 out of 8 leaflets).

Progress

Some supermarkets show cautious progress compared to 2020. For example, Lidl is the only chain to have set clear targets based on the Prevention Agreement and reports on this. Ekoplaza has offered significantly more products of the five basic food groups in its folders (from 19 to 30 per cent). As in 2020, Ekoplaza and Lidl are the leaders of the Superlist but the other supermarkets are more behind. Former frontrunner Dirk performs no worse than in 2020 but did little to improve where others did. Coop drops back to the laggards. Albert Heijn, as the largest supermarket in the Netherlands, clearly lags behind in promoting a healthy diet.

View the ‘Superlijst Gezondheid 2022'
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