Consumers change food buying habits in light of health packaging

by Andrew Barrow (Subscribe to Andrew Barrow's posts)

Posted Apr 24th 2006 9:06AM
Filed under: British Isles, Trends, Newspapers, Stores & Shopping

Now this is interesting. Following the introduction of health warnings on the front of food packaging by major UK supermarkets, sales of certain products fell. In some cases, the drop was quite dramatic.

Today's Sunday Times reports that within two months of Tesco's introduction of nutrition labels, sales of Prawn Mayonnaise sandwiches have fallen 26%-37% over the past year. Sainsburys says that sales of Chicken Madras have fallen 40% since it began its labelling scheme 15 months ago. Similar declines were reported for Sainsbury's other ready meals.

While the government's Food Standard Agency has been trying to introduce a "traffic light" nutrition labelling program since 2004, individual supermarkets' efforts are having an immediate effect on customers' purchasing habits.

Other indications show that consumers are heeding the various warnings. Sales of Salmon en Croute fell by more than a third; that's unsurprising when you read that a package contains 91% of the daily recommendaded saturated fat intake. Croissant sales fell by 8%. In comparison, sales of low-fat, low-salt egg and cress sandwiches doubled.