Tesco cuts sugar in own-brand drinks to avoid sugar tax

Tesco has escaped the government’s sugar tax by cutting the amount of sugar that its own-label soft drinks contain to below the 5 grams per 100ml at which the levy is supposed to come in.

The supermarket giant’s move was applauded by the government, which has attempted to concentrate industry minds on reformulation. Tesco, which announced it was changing the formula for all 251 of its own-brand soft drinks, declined to say how it had reduced the sugar content below taxable levels.

“This is just one part of our plans to make the food on our shelves healthier by reducing levels of sugar, salt and fat in our own brands,” said Matt Davies, Tesco’s chief executive for the UK and Republic of Ireland.

“We have worked to make sure our soft drinks still taste great, just with less sugar. Tesco customers are now consuming on average over 20% less sugar from our soft drinks than in 2011. We’re hoping this initiative will help make it a little easier for our customers to live more healthily.”

When asked how it had made the reformulation and whether it involved low calorie sweeteners or extra fruit, Tesco replied in a statement: “We’ve worked really hard to make sure the drinks still taste great and we’ve rigorously tested them with our customers.”

The government expressed satisfaction that the threatened tax was exerting the pressure it wanted on the soft drinks industry.

“It is great to see Tesco leading the field by reducing the level of sugar in their own-brand drinks,” said Nicola Blackwood, the public health minister. “It is proof that taking added sugar out of drinks is both possible and in line with what customers want.

“The government’s sugar levy is designed to encourage manufacturers to cut the sugar from their products before the levy comes into force in 2018. Responsible actions like this are so important in our fight against childhood obesity.”

The tax was announced by the then chancellor, George Osborne, in his budget in March but will not take effect until April 2018. It will affect producers and importers of soft drinks that contain “added sugar”.

Health campaigners and the government are particularly pleased with Tesco’s action because they are one of the biggest suppliers of own-label colas. The cut in sugar to 5g per 100ml represents a 50% reduction. The hope is that other manufacturers will follow suit.

Fruit juices will not be classified as soft drinks for the purposes of the tax, even though there is plenty of scientific evidence that they contain high quantities of natural sugars and therefore can contribute to obesity. Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, has said fruit juices and smoothies are the new danger, because of the assumption that they are healthy.

The consultation document on the soft drinks levy says “the legal definition of ‘added sugars’ used for the levy should exclude fruit juice, fruit puree, and fruit juice concentrate”. That leaves it open to soft drinks manufacturers to add extra fruit to boost the sweetness of their drink.

The Obesity Health Alliance, which brings together a number of health charities and groups concerned about the health impact of the nation’s weight, applauded the Tesco announcement and the implication that the tax threat was working, but said that was not enough.

“Just last week, new figures confirmed that over a fifth of children are overweight or obese by the time they start primary school, and a third by the time they reach year six,” it said in a statement. “So to try to stem the growth in obesity, it is vital that other supermarkets and food and drinks manufacturers follow Tesco’s lead and reformulate their own products too.

“However, reformulation alone will not solve this problem. It needs to be one of several measures that challenges the obesogenic environment that surrounds us, including closing loopholes to protect children from junk food marketing on TV and online.”

Prof Russell Viner, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s officer for health promotion, said: “This is really positive news and we congratulate Tesco on this move. Only last week figures showed that over a third of children are overweight or obese by the time they reach year six, so it is vital that this acts as a catalyst to inspire other producers and retailers to make similar changes.

“But this is just one step of many needed to make a serious impact on this deep seated problem. That is why in addition to reformulation we need to see restrictions on junk food advertising before 9pm, greater support for parents to reach and maintain a healthy weight before, during and after pregnancy and an extension to the national child measurement programme. It is only by taking a wider, more holistic approach that we will be able to overcome this national crisis.”

Tesco cuts sugar in own-brand drinks to avoid sugar tax

Tesco to hand out free fruit to shoppers’ children

Tesco is promising to take some of the pain out of the weekly grocery shop for parents by offering free fruit for children to munch on.

The UK’s biggest supermarket tested the initiative in Scotland last year and will now offer a selection of apples, citrus fruit and bananas for parents to pick up at the start of their shopping trip in 800 UK stores. The retailer is facing fierce competition from fast-growing discounters Aldi and Lidl, and is looking for ways to win over shoppers.

The idea came from one of its checkout assistants, Maria Simpson, who works in a Lincolnshire store. She suggested that handing out free fruit to children would provide a healthy alternative to sweets – often a last resort for harassed parents.

Two years ago Tesco became the first major retailer to remove sweets and chocolates from its checkouts and in 2015 it announced all the children’s lunchbox-sized soft drinks it sells would have no added sugar. It expects to give away 1m pieces of fruit each month as part of the new healthy eating push.

“We are Britain’s biggest greengrocer, so we want to make it easier for parents to get their children eating more healthily,” said Tesco’s UK chief, Matt Davies. “As a dad, I know it can be tricky getting children to eat their fruit and vegetables, so we’re hoping this initiative will help create healthy eating habits that will stay with children as they grow up.”

Related: UK supermarket sales suffer worst fall for at least two years

The British Heart Foundation has welcomed the idea. Its chief executive, Simon Gillespie, said: “It’s a positive step towards improving children’s health throughout the UK and helps parents ensure their children get their five portions of fruit and vegetables every day.”

Tesco group chief executive Dave Lewis, a former Unilever executive, is trying to rehabilitate the company . He has encouraged staff to improve the service for shoppers under the slogan “every little help makes a big difference” with initiatives such as distributing unsold food to charities and tackling food waste.

Tesco to hand out free fruit to shoppers’ children

Why has Tesco suddenly changed nut allergy information on its merchandise?

Folks with nut allergy symptoms locate peanuts notably difficult to keep away from. Photograph: Alamy

Will these potatoes include peanuts? What about this fruit juice? Preposterous questions possibly, but Clare Hussein is nonetheless asking herself them following she observed that Tesco changed its “may possibly contain nuts” tips on a raft of unlikely things. She has a daughter, aged three, with a number of allergic reactions.

“These merchandise virtually changed their allergy data overnight,” she says. “When you attempt a weekly store for your family members and uncover that every thing from baked beans to pizza, butternut squash and more is abruptly labelled as possibly unsafe, it leaves you with extremely limited choices for feeding your family.”

Hussein, from Portsmouth, has commenced a petition towards the store’s “blanket labelling” at Adjust.org/tesconuts. It presently has a lot more than 13,000 signatures. Tesco is shifting labelling to meet the specifications of EU legislation that comes into force in December. A spokesperson for the supermarket advised us: “Our initial priority is often the safety of our clients. We only display these warnings on products when there is a chance of cross contamination.”

To these with no knowledge of nut allergy symptoms, they might seem like a fabrication of a present day globe that constantly requirements one thing to fret about. But allergies can destroy. “One particular in 70 kids was allergic to nuts in 2002,” says Maureen Jenkins, director of clinical solutions at Allergy United kingdom, which is in discussion with Tesco over its labelling. “The numbers have tripled in the final decade.”

To people with an allergy, nuts are tough to avoid. “There is peanut all over the place,” says Pam Ewan, advisor allergist at Addenbrookes hospital, whose controlled examine of peanut oral immunotherapy was published in the Lancet in January. “Peanut eating is reasonably current. A person who is 50 or 60 would not have had nuts in their residence. They have been luxury items. Now the peanut is quite extensively utilised. It is in people’s houses, on surfaces. If you took swabs from worktops or floors [of households without having allergic reactions], you’d discover peanut.”

Ewan has worked on allergy symptoms for 30 years. It was in the mid-90s, she says, that she noticed people coming to her with nut allergy symptoms. “Sixty-two cases in a year,” she says. “The beginning of the uprise.” But her latest research has proven a possible alternative, by desensitising people with peanut allergic reactions through exposing them to small every day amounts of peanut protein.

At first this may well suggest 20mg, but by six months the exposure can attain five nuts a day. Above time, the allergy is “switched off”. Ewan is not alone in exploring this cure – similar approaches have been attempted in the US – but the Addenbrookes work was a managed research. Ewan’s crew hopes to open a clinic in Cambridge later this yr , whilst the extended approach of applying for a licence for the remedy is beneath way.

None of which makes Hussein’s work of buying for her daughter any easier. She says she is but to hear back from Tesco on her queries she would like to know whether or not the merchandise themselves have transformed or just the labels. Nonetheless, she has observed that some of the packaging – of ham and Hi Juice drinks –has had the “could incorporate nuts” data eliminated.

“Individuals say: ‘Shop somewhere else,’” she says, “but it’s not as straightforward as that. I went into the greengrocer last week and they had nuts hanging in the doorway.” For now, the Tesco herby potatoes and prepacked butternut squash are nevertheless off the menu.

Why has Tesco suddenly changed nut allergy information on its merchandise?

Mother forces Tesco to pull variety of outfits featuring glasses-sporting "geeks"

“Luckily he’s also youthful to realize he seems different to other youngsters with his glasses, but this Tesco selection is really disturbing.

“I realize that nerds and geeks are fashionable now, but individuals phrases nevertheless have negative connotations to many. Those t-shirts had been stereotyping, saying all people with glasses are nerds. It truly is profiling, and it truly is incorrect.”

Logan has had corrective surgery on his eyes three occasions and the thick cataracts indicate he has quite minor peripheral vision.

In a letter to the supermarket, Miss Whitaker wrote: “Tesco can you please inform me why it is acceptable to promote children’s clothes that have photos of animals sporting glasses with the word NERD / GEEK on them?

“It’s ‘fashion’ statements like this that give kids the unfavorable associations to glasses.

“Teaching young children that you are a ‘geek’ if you dress in glasses, and are of a reduced self-well worth than the ‘rest of the gang,’ despite the fact that it may possibly only appear like a t-shirt to some men and women it truly is issues like this that motivate bullying, harm self-picture and leave a lasting notion in a younger impressionable thoughts.

“Why is it Ok to have a damaging connotation related to someone’s impairment? Why should my son increase up with men and women creating exciting of him because it’s ‘fashionable’?”

Following the apology from Tesco, Miss Whitaker, who is engaged to Logan’s father Dave Kelly, a carpenter, mentioned: “I am extremely pleased Tesco has taken my message significantly. Hopefully it will have an impact on the selections created by other merchants.”

Mother forces Tesco to pull variety of outfits featuring glasses-sporting "geeks"