Reducing health harms of foods high in fat, sugar or salt: economic modelling – final report

1. Introduction

1.1 Having a poor diet and being overweight can have a negative impact on health and wellbeing. To address this public health concern, the Scottish Government published its Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan in July 2018 (SG, 2018). This included a number of actions focusing on children, the food environment, weight management services and leadership to promote healthy weight and diet.

1.2 The primary aim of the plan is to reduce the public health harm associated with the excessive consumption of calories, fat, sugar and salt, including the risks of developing type 2 diabetes, various types of cancer and other conditions such as cardiovascular disease.

1.3 These wider plans included a commitment to consult on proposals to restrict the promotion and marketing of foods high in fat, sugar or salt as evidence strongly suggests that promotions drive increased sales. The expectation is, that by restricting such promotions, less of these foods will be purchased. However, some of the expected health benefits may be offset if people purchase and consume other foods instead.

1.4 In October 2018, the Scottish Government launched a public consultation on 'Reducing Health Harms of Foods High in Fat, Sugar or Salt' to seek views on the proposals (SG, 2018). A report on the analysis of responses was published in September 2019 (SG, 2019).

1.5 The Programme for Government that was announced on the 3rd of September 2019 set out that the Scottish Government will bring forward a Bill on Restricting Foods Promotions for introduction in year five of the legislative programme. A range of work is being undertaken to inform considerations for this legislation and associated impact assessments.

1.6 This report describes work conducted within a research project that formed part of the aforementioned package of work. The overall aim of this project was to model the impact on population level calorie, fat, sugar and salt intake from restricting the advertising of all price promotions.

1.7 This research defines discretionary food categories as the following: take home confectionery, biscuits, take home savouries, cakes, pastries and higher fats and sugar morning goods, total puddings and desserts, take home drinks and edible ices and ice cream. These categories of discretionary foods are based on work done by Kantar Worldpanel for Public Health England on sugar and calorie reduction (Public Health England, 2015).

1.8 The project conducted an ex-ante analysis of the impact of restricting all the in-premise promotion and marketing of discretionary foods on sales. Specific focus was placed on estimating the effect of the promotion of the price/value offer, as opposed to the effect from the lower price/value alone. In addition, the project also estimated the impact of restricting the promotion of discretionary food on total calories purchased, after taking into account potential product switching and substitution for other food products.

1.9 More widely, the project intended to contribute to the evidence base on the potential impact of the proposed restrictions on diet-related health outcomes.

1.10 The specific aims of the research were:

a. To provide evidence of the impact (indicating the likelihood of positive or negative impact) of restricting the in-store marketing/promotion of discretionary foods on consumer purchasing behaviour (in terms of volume, frequency and types of foods purchased). In particular, whether there are possible unintended consequences of the measure.

b. To indicate whether there are individual factors that may affect consumer behaviours through substitution and/or complementary purchases, such as accessibility measured by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), Rural/Urban, household income and household life stage).

c. To estimate the reduction in the purchase of discretionary foods (and associated reductions in calories, total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt) as a consequence of restricting promotions/marketing, the percentage increase in the purchase of other foods (and associated increases in calories, total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt) and whether it may compensate the changes in nutrients originated by the reduction of discretionary foods.