Today, Senedd Members voted to bring in new laws to help make it easier to choose healthier food and drink options in Wales. This new legislation will address how products high in fat, salt and sugar are disproportionately promoted to consumers in comparison to healthier items.
“We welcome the action the Welsh Government is taking to rebalance the food environment in Wales and address the harms this is causing,” said Simon Scheeres, Public Affairs Manager at Cancer Research UK.
“We know that overweight and obesity is the biggest cause of cancer after smoking and costs the Welsh economy around £3billion annually. But the greatest cost lies in our communities, where the impact of obesity-related disease takes a significant toll on health in Wales.”
Making it easier to choose healthier options
These new measures will not ban the sale of any products high in fat, salt and sugar, but will instead change how and where they are promoted, with the aim of making it easier for Welsh consumers to choose healthier options.
The new laws will limit price promotions for products high in fat, salt and sugar. This includes multi-buy offers (such as ‘buy one get one free’ deals) and free refills of high sugar beverages. These promotions are known to drive sales of unhealthier items and prompt families to consume and spend more.
The new legislation will also restrict the placement of products high in fat, salt and sugar at certain locations in larger shops, such as near entrances, checkouts and aisle ends – and their online equivalents. These locations have been shown to lead to impulse purchases of unhealthier options.
Our analysis has shown that 28.5% of all food and drink products in Wales are bought on promotion, with high fat, salt and sugar options being more likely to be purchased on offer. However, shoppers are more likely to swap to healthier products if they are cheaper or on offer.
Research has also shown that the promotion of unhealthy food and drink can lead to increased spending, with consumers purchasing items that they may not have intended to buy. As such, health campaigners have long highlighted that these promotions drive sales, increase spending, and lead to increased consumption rather than sensible stockpiling of goods.
Maintaining a healthy weight
These new measures have been welcomed by cancer charities and health campaigners as overweight and obesity is the second biggest cause of cancer in Wales, causing at least13 different types of cancer.
In Wales, around 6 in 10 adults and almost 3 in 10 reception aged children are now overweight or obese. Our analysis estimates that, if current trends continue, the proportion of people living with obesity will be almost as high as the proportion with a healthy weight by the 2040s.
“Maintaining a healthy weight reduces the likelihood of developing cancers associated with overweight and obesity, but we know that the environment around us can make this harder to achieve,” said Scheeres.
Ouranalysis has also shown that across all income groups in Great Britain, shoppers who buy more on promotions are 28% more likely to be overweight and 13% more likely to live with obesity than low promotional shoppers. This helps to demonstrate the importance of this new legislation.
“While there is no silver bullet for reducing overweight and obesity rates, the introduction of this legislation in Wales will help create healthier shopping journeys for the vast majority of families, who we know want to shop and live well,” continues Scheeres.
Embedding change across the UK
At Cancer Research UK, we’ve been calling for the UK and devolved governments to implement price promotion and location restrictions on unhealthy foods since 2018. The path to policy change is rarely straightforward, but we are making increasing progress.
Restrictions on the placement of food and drinks high in fat, salt and sugar in larger shops and their online equivalents were introduced in England in October 2022, and early indications have shown that they have resulted in a reduction in sales of these products. Restrictions on multi-buy type price promotions are scheduled to finally come into effect in England in October this year.
In Wales itself, the promotions restrictions will come into force in March 2026. In the meantime, the Welsh Government should continue to show leadership, progressing delivery of itsHealthy Weight, Healthy Wales strategy.
We hope Scotland won’t be far behind. With the Scottish Population Health Framework due to be published later this Spring, we look
forward to the Scottish Government speedily following Wales’ lead and introducing similar restrictions on the promotion of unhealthy foods.
UK and devolved governments now need to build on this, introducing a wider set of measures to drive a generational shift in overweight and obesity rates:
Creating healthier environments for children and young people – by ensuring the UK-wide TV and online junk food advertising restrictions are successfully implemented this October; and exploring restrictions on the outdoor advertising of such products.
Making it easier for people to purchase healthier food – ourTrolley Trends report sets out some of the ways this can be done.
Further addressing the barriers that make it harder for people to be healthy.