This month, supermarket giant Woolworths - of Countdown fame - announced it will remove children’s candy at the checkouts.
The move is an attempt to make healthier choices easier for customers and to combat “pester power”, by ensuring 80 per cent of products have a health star rating of3.5 or higher, a statement read.
For context, the lacklustre health star rating system compares like-for-like packaged products on a nutritional scale of 0.5 to five. The idea goes that such a system incentivises people to choose healthier options, with companies reformulating their products in the process.
The issue is that the system is voluntary, meaning companies can pick and choose whether to use it. Even if companies reach government targets to use the system on 60 per cent of all products by November next year, there are 40 per cent of products left flailing in the wind.
National Party health spokesman Shane Reti pledged to review the system during this year’s election campaign. Whether that comes to fruition, who knows? And considering all of the money that’s been pumped into it, why not simply make the system mandatory?
Why checkouts?
Woolworths nutritionist and registered dietician Deb Sue.
Back to lollies. Woolworths nutritionist and registered dietician Deb Sue told me that as a mum, she knows how easy it can be to feel worn down at the checkout by persistent little ones. “So I welcome the chance to consider a healthier snack option in those times - or not have the conversation at all!
“While we’re taking steps to make healthier easier, we’re not the fun police or telling people what to buy or what not to. [We’re] just nudging shoppers towards healthier choices by upping the healthier items on display. Expect to see more nuts, muesli bars and less confectionery with toys or cartoon branding at the checkout.”
According to researchers Fildes et al last year, foods purchased at the checkout tend to be additional, unplanned purchases and therefore likely to be “driven by impulse”.
“Placing products in prominent positions in store has been shown to substantially increase sales of these products and retailers make great efforts to organise product displays in ways to maximise profit.”
In 2018, a University of Cambridge study found the implementation of checkout food policies reduced the number of “on the go” purchases of sugary treats, chocolate and potato chips by 76 per cent. Researchers canvassed nine major supermarkets using data from more than 30,000 households a year before and a year after policies were put in place.
How did we get here?
Heuristics are automatic assumptions that people rely on when making decisions. These mental shortcuts can be exploited by marketers.
Discounted products could fit the bill here - for example, where suppliers pay more for their products to be discounted because people are more likely to want a bargain. The issue is that people mightn’t be conscious of the wheeling and dealings behind these discounted products. Said product might be placed next to another that’s essentially the same, but twice the price, for example.
The emotion-evoking red label might also hide the fact the discount is only to the value of a few cents or not applied at all. The latter was the case in 2003, when the Commerce Commission took on Kennedy’s Foodcentre (better known as Pak’nSave Māngere) following discrepancies between advertised sales and those charged, for example.
The Fair Trading Act 1986 and Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 prohibit misleading and deceptive conduct, generally.
But what about marketing tricks that aren’t so obvious? Out of sight, out of mind - or so the theory goes regarding heuristics around prime real estate and shelving space.
Multiple studies have documented the marketing strategy to promote nutritionally lacking foods within the sight and reach of children.
In the context of shelving space, suppliers can pay more for their products to be at eye level. This prime real estate can vary depending on the audience, though. US researchers in 2014 measured the shelf placement and eye positioning of 86 cereal box characters in 10 grocery stores, for example. They found the children-centric packaging aligned with the height of kids.
Could this manipulation of sorts be fair, especially when we’re talking about a vulnerable group?
Advertising to children gets murky. The Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) Children and Young People’s Advertising Code recognises the need to protect children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The problem is twofold: the self-regulated body is - again - voluntary (and industry-funded), meaning companies can choose whether to take on board its decisions, and the ASA’s scope is limited. It doesn’t deal with prime real estate, product configurations (targeting kids at the checkout), or food labels.
In contrast, last year restrictions came into force in the UK to crack down on promotions and placement of certain foods and drinks high in fat, salt, or sugar. Promotions of less healthy foods are now restricted in certain areas - store entrances, aisle ends, and checkouts, for example.
“Compliance by industry with the promotion and placement regulations can significantly improve our food environment by ensuring healthier food is more easily accessible and more visible in shops, ultimately supporting people to lead healthier lives,” the regulation guidelines read.
In Aotearoa, promotions and techniques were highlighted in the Commerce Commission’s mega Retail Grocery Market Study in 2020, yet the former Labour Government’s Grocery Supply Code of Conduct merely suggested that any deals made between suppliers and retailers were to be negotiated and fair between the parties. In other words, transparency over shelving space or tricks of the trade weren’t discussed - a missed opportunity, in my view.
What does this all mean? It’s great to see Woolworths moving closer to a system that values customers over profits. Should suppliers, retailers and advertising aficionados be left to determine the agenda? I’m not convinced.
An earlier version of this story said Dr Shane Reti wanted to remove the Health Star rating system for food. Reti has clarified that he would like to review the system because it was not clear that it was fit for purpose.
