In a step to combat childhood obesity by 2030 the government has brought in new restrictions on High Fat Salt & Sugar (HFSS) items for sale in UK retailers. The legislation restricts reduced-price offers on food falling within the HFSS category, putting pressure on retailers to adapt to these restrictions by October 2022. Our Lead Micro-consultant, Geoff, has been leading this project alongside Waitrose’ internal team and Michael Bewley, one of our newer team members.
On the face of it the legislation sounds fairly straight forward; it’s just moving a few products around in a store, right? However, for many of our clients this is major shakeup of their retail space, and significantly restricts specific items categorised as “HFSS” from being promoted by volume or price. Additionally, the change also prohibits the locations these products can occupy in key areas of stores, for example; checkouts, store entrances or aisle ends.
OSP have been supporting one of our long-term clients, Waitrose with the very large task of re-assigning space across their entire estate: this client has hundreds of store sites and thousands of product location plans (planograms). Waitrose have enlisted OSP to work with them to reduce the workload and impact on their internal teams. OSP’s support in creating new plans, running reports and efficiently re-assigning plans to locations ensures the impact of the HFSS legislation is minimised and implemented in line with the clients own HFSS rollout timelines.
Managing Director Tristan Kemp notes “This legislaton marks a huge development in the retail sector so it is vital that retailers are prepared ahead of October 2022. OSP are on-hand to tackle any adaptions required following legislative changes such as these, and are currently working with one of the most popular supermarkets in the UK to do so.”
We work closely with your team to create demonstrable improvements to your Space Planning processes, and ensure accurate implementation of these changes, taking into account legislative restrictions and the bounds of your business, and your budget!