The Scottish Government are currently consulting on their proposals for restricting price and location promotions of food and drink high in fat, salt and sugar. The primary aim of the policy is to reduce the public health harms associated with the excess consumption of calories, fat, sugar and salt.
The consultation is seeking views on the following proposals:
In our response, we outline the importance of ensuring as many types of price and location promotions as possible are included in the regulations to ensure a fair and consistent approach and avoid loopholes. We disagree with the proposals to include only pre-packed items and also with the overall aim of the policy being reformulation. The aim of the policy must be dietary improvement. We support the proposal to include temporary price reductions (TPRs) in the legislation, as these are the most commonly used type of price promotion. In terms of categories of products the restrictions should apply to, our preference is for Option 2, Discretionary foods + ice cream and dairy desserts. Restrictions should be category based, applying to all products within a category, to help ease understanding, regulation and enforcement.
Our key asks for policy action are:
The consultation closes on 23rd September 2022.