ARE SUPERMARKETS ACTING RESPONSIBLY?

I suspect this is a theme I may have to revisit, often! I visited a Tesco store yesterday and positioned near to the doors, in the first isle you have to walk along, are the special offers. One particular offer caught my eye, “1 Dozen Doughnuts for £1.00”.Who in there right mind would eat a dozen doughnuts? Well clearly people do as the supermarkets do their research very thoroughly. Marketing such an unhealthy food, in such an excessive quantity and so ludicrously cheaply, seems the height of irresponsibility as our nation faces an obesity epidemic and diseases like Rickets are making a return due to poor nutrition.

Yes you read that right, a nation in the middle of an obesity epidemic where people suffer from poor nutrition!

I am sure that the perpetrators of this food crime will claim that this offer is intended for sharing or for a family to consume over several days. Well as anyone who has ever been fond of doughnuts will tell you, they don’t keep and must be eaten at once or they go stale. But such an offer is so very, very tempting to anyone who likes a cake or two (or twelve). Even for a family of four this equates to a whopping three sugary doughnuts each.

I accept that special offers are a valuable marketing tool for the supermarkets but why wont they make their offers in a more responsible way that promotes healthy eating?

Right now we are in the middle of the annual glut of UK grown apples, would it be such a bad idea to highlight the apple season by making use of the plentiful supply and giving every customer an apple as they leave the store? Think about it, deploy your best people people, get them to personally thank customers for their business as they leave the store whilst offering them a free treat of tasty seasonal fruit or veg. It would bring a personal human touch back into the shopping experience and build relationships with customers.

Just don’t kill off all your customers by encouraging them to eat vast amounts of nutritionally poor foods, it’s bad for business if all your customers are dead!