Tesco has set out new plans to help customers eat more healthily. The supermarket’s plans between now and 2025 will include changes to promotions and pricing and a further expansion of their plant-based ranges. Progress against these plans will be reported publicly, underpinned by new targets to increase the proportion of sales of healthy food, and to make products healthier.
Together with Tesco’s existing ambition to increase sales of plant-based food, the supermarket’s 2025 commitments on health are:
- An increase in sales of healthy products, as a proportion of total sales, to 65% by 2025, as defined by the Government’s nutrient profiling model.
- To increase sales of plant-based meat alternatives by 300% by 2025.
- To make products healthier through reformulation including plans to increase the percentage of ready meals that contain at least one of the recommended five a day to 66% by 2025 (currently 50%, up from 26% in 2018).
The new targets are the culmination of 18 months of work to understand how the average UK weekly shopping basket could be made more healthy, and to develop plans that build further on Tesco’s existing health programme. Tesco has worked closely with its charity partners and other stakeholders, as well as listening to families to understand how they want to eat more healthily, and what barriers need to be overcome.
To meet the targets, Tesco’s strategy will focus on:
- Reformulating products. Tesco will remove billions of calories and thousands of tonnes of salt, fat and sugar from products, without affecting taste, as part of a rolling programme of reformulation.
- Helping customers by removing barriers to healthier choices, for example by offering affordable plant-based protein options, and increasing the number of promotions on healthy products.
- Inspiring customers to make bigger changes to their lifestyle – including through the launch of new ranges, as well as reviewing the prominence and the amount of space dedicated to healthier products in stores.
Tesco Group CEO Ken Murphy said: “Customers are telling us they want to eat a more healthy, sustainable diet, but without having to stretch the weekly shopping budget. By making even very small changes to the items they put in their basket week in week out, we can help them make that change.
“We’ve worked hard to help our customers eat healthily and we’re proud of our track record, and it’s clear we can do more. Today we are sharing our stretching new ambitions on health, and committing to reporting our progress against them.”
The new targets are supported by leading health organisations, as well as Tesco’s Health Charity Partners – Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK, who have worked closely with Tesco to help shape its approach on healthy diets.
The Chief Executives of Tesco’s Health Charity Partners – Dr Charmaine Griffiths, British Heart Foundation; Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK; and Chris Askew, Diabetes UK – commented: “We welcome Tesco’s new commitments which will help support millions of people to have access to affordable, healthy, and sustainable food. It’s so important that the healthy choice is the easy choice, and we hope this new strategy will help that become a reality.”
