News

Tesco reduces own brand sugar

10 Nov 2016

UK supermarket chain Tesco, as part of what it describes as its ongoing commitment to reduce the sugar, fat and salt content across all its own brands, has announced further reductions to sugar levels in its own brand soft drinks.

UK supermarket chain Tesco, as part of what it describes as its ongoing commitment to reduce the sugar, fat and salt content across all its own brands to help Britain’s shoppers make healthier choices, has announced further reductions to sugar levels in its own brand soft drinks.

The move supports the increasingly recognised recommendation that sugars should make up no more than 5% of people’s daily diet and halves the sugar content in some products including Tesco Cola.

“This is just one part of our plans to make the food on our shelves healthier by reducing levels of sugar, salt and fat in our own brands,” said Matt Davies, Tesco UK and ROI CEO. "We have worked to make sure our soft drinks still taste great, just with less sugar. Tesco customers are now consuming on average over 20 per cent less sugar from our soft drinks than in 2011. We’re hoping this initiative will help make it a little easier for our customers to live more healthily.”

“Helping customers lead healthier lives by reducing sugar in its own brand soft drinks is a welcome move by Tesco,” said Chris Askew, Diabetes UK CEO. “Similar action from other manufacturers and retailers to make products lower in sugar, saturated fat and salt is vital to tackle rising rates of obesity in the UK. Making the healthy choice the easy choice for all of us will help to tackle the rapidly rising number of people developing Type 2 diabetes.”

Tesco started reducing sugar in its soft drinks in 2011, and now it says that the final 50 products in the 251-strong range have been reformulated to below 5 grams per 100ml. This work, according to the company, means the average Tesco customer is now consuming over 20% less sugar from own brand soft drinks than they did in 2011.

In addition to its work on soft drinks, Tesco says it has also cut the salt, fat and sugar in over 4,200 of its own products since 2012 and has plans for reductions in a further 1,000 products each year for the next three years. For example, over 300 tonnes of saturated fat and 15 tonnes of salt have been removed from Tesco own brand butter and spreads. Over 65 tonnes of fat, 600 tonnes of sugar and 27 tonnes of salt have been removed from the Tesco own brand cooking sauces range.