UK to ban most ‘buy one get one free’ junk food in 2022
 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...-2022-bp2hxg9nv

I wonder if this includes foods that are high in fat like cheese or bacon. Because that would really be a bummer! I personally don’t have a problem with them banning buy one get one free candy bars and cookies. Although that’s a slippery slope and leads to possible bands on what we consider healthy food like red meat and cheese.

No, real food such as cheese and bacon are not included. It is the following processed foods which under consideration:

Soft drinks with added sugar that are in scope of the soft drinks industry levy
Chocolate confectionery
Sugar confectionery
Cakes
Ice cream
Morning goods (for example pastries)
Puddings and dairy desserts
Sweet biscuits
Breakfast cereals
Yogurts
Milk drinks with added sugar
Juices with added sugar
Pizza
Crisps and savoury snacks
Ready meals and meal centres
Chips and similar potato products

https://www.gov.uk/government/consu...ice-enforcement

The above list provides a who's who of unhealthy, processed food, and while I am usually hesitant whenever the "authorities" start to limit food, I'm not the least hesitant in this case. Given the low cost to produce, offering a two-for-one is simply a way to get people, particularly those with limited budgets, dependent on this stuff. Quick, cheap, easy, and poisonous is really the bottom line here.

I definitely agree that those foods are ripe to be subject to special regulation. However, it seems that some prepackaged low carb and keto foods would end up being included in that. And there are some people who might have trouble following a low-carb way of eating without using product like the above. Even eating healthy junk food, in my opinion, is better than eating traditional junk food.Using low-carb or keto products can’t help somebody find their way into a more clean version of this way of life. I would hate to see people discouraged.

While I agree with the list, I disagree with the government regulation.

On the other hand, we in the USA banned cigarette advertisements and it seems to have helped reduce smoking quite a bit.

So although I disagree with the regulation in principle, it might not be so bad. And they are not banning the junk foods altogether. While I don't think they should be selling junk food, I don't want the government deciding what is junk food. Why? Private industry uses tacit bribes to get the government to decide what is good or bad. Remember when the US told us eggs and nuts were bad and white bread was good?

As long as they stay away from cream, cheese, bacon, and other minimally processed 'real' foods I guess it's OK not to be able to run a special.

Bob

They had better keep their tax well away from plain full-fat yogurt

That's what I was thinking when I read that list too! I'm hoping what they mean is that it'll only refer to the sugar loaded, flavored low fat/fat free yogurts.

I've never seen BOGO deals on yogurts, but then maybe I don't get out enough. Or maybe it's a UK thing, not common in the US, since yogurt actually has some food value as a dairy product, even if the sugary stuff isn't much different from candy.



In the store where I worked, BOGO was not the same as a half-price deal. You needed to scan the 2nd item, then the system deducted the price of the 2nd (or lower priced) item - we could not simply sell one at half price. This was so that the store would receive proper credit for the number of items sold on BOGO, and maintain accurate computer assisted inventory records. In part it had something to do with inventory values - items added to the system at full price, inventoried at full price, needed $$ credit from the manufacturer/distributor in order to not completely mess up inventory records. Not all stores do it like that though.

At any rate, almost everything that was on BOGO was utter junk - 12-packs of soda, bread, cookies, chips, candy, cereal....

But the exact same items would frequently go on sales with similar price per item as the BOGO deal's end price. Sometimes those items would cost a little more than the BOGO price, sometimes a little lower than the BOGO price. In case people haven't noticed, the regular price for a single of the BOGO item when there's a BOGO sale often goes up a little during the BOGO sale, then back down to the regular selling price the next week. So in case the stores and manufacturers haven't figured this out yet, all they really need to do to get around the BOGO on junk food prohibition is to offer the same junk at half price, or a special deal that's as good as BOGO, or almost as good as BOGO.

The idea of getting a BOGO might bring in a lot of bargain minded customers, but it won't be long before more customers become more price savvy, and will recognize that they're getting a "might as well buy 2 at this price" deal.

In other words, I don't think eliminating BOGO deals on junk food is going to do much at all to decrease junk food sales, at least not for very long.

That’s a good point ... this eliminates the BOGO scheme but the grocers and manufacturers will find a way around it. In fact, after reading the regulation, this does not apply to temporary price cut of items. This may have a beneficial effect of keeping people from buying more than they actually need. I’ve always hated the buy one get ones because, as a single person, I don’t necessarily need two of something. But in order to get the lower price, I end up buying two of some thing I don’t need. I hated that in restaurant coupons to. It definitely was biased against single people.

I just went and read the regulation. Seems to be well written. I know some legislatures in the United States that can benefit from regulation writing lessons.

A co-worker used to get people to buy the 2nd one just by saying "it won't cost you any more than buying one, and you can always give the 2nd one away to a friend if you don't want it, or even if you want to make amends with someone you haven't been getting along with, the 2nd one would be a great peace offering". Worked pretty well - she almost always convinced them to get a second one.


She was a very helpful cashier, always talking to customers about ways to store things so they'd take up less room, or good ways to prepare certain foods, but one of the reasons she attempted to get people to get the BOGO deal was that the more the store sold (since the BOGO counted as 2 items), the more hours of work us part timers would have on our schedule.