These Regulations restrict the promotion of high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) products by location and volume price in medium and large businesses that sell food or drink in England (50 or more employees), with the aim of reducing overconsumption of HFSS products that can contribute to children being overweight or living with obesity and intending to shift the balance of promotions toward healthier options and maximise the availability of healthier products available on promotion.
These restrictions are by location and volume price and will apply to store entrances, aisle ends and checkouts and their online equivalents, as well as prohibit medium and large businesses that sell food or drink in England from offering promotions such as "buy-one-get-one-free" or "3 for 2" offers on HFSS products respectively. Overall, the Regulations aim to significantly improve the food environment by ensuring that healthier food is more widely available, more easily accessible and more visible in shops, and ultimately support people to make healthier choices.
The decision on the products in scope was made following consultation feedback, reducing the scope to those categories that are of most concern to childhood obesity. There will be a two-stage approach to determine if a product is HFSS. First, the product will need to fall into this revised list of categories based on the PHE Calorie and Sugar reformulation programme and SDIL. The 2004/2005 Nutrient Profiling Model will then need to be applied to that product, if it scores 4 or more for food or 1 or more for drinks then it will not be able to be promoted. The restrictions will also apply to free refills of sugar-sweetened drinks in the out-of-home sector (for example restaurants, coffee shops etc).
