YOU CAN BOGOF! – UPDATED

UPDATE – SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF THIS ARTICLE, THE LEGISLATION HAS SINCE BEEN DELAYED TO OCTOBER 2023

This week, both retailers and suppliers are holding their breath, as rumours swirl around HFSS legislation being altered. 

Here at C-Talk we’ve heard that the promotions aspect of the bill will potentially be scrapped, or at least changed in some way. While this appears to be good news for retailers, it unfortunately adds yet more uncertainty and confusion around a subject which still is largely unclear.

With some retailers already having made changes in-store, and the initial legislation launch date already being pushed back, it’s fair to say it’s becoming a bit of a farce. But what does this mean for us retailers? At the moment, we are not hearing anything about changes to the store size ruling, symbol group ruling or any other matters, so plan ahead for those changes accordingly.

However, we are hearing that promotional offer restrictions on HFSS foods might be scrapped. This means that retailers can run BOGOF offers, 2 for £1.50, multi-buy offerings, etc. This is great news for impulse-driven stores, as increasing basket spend on confectionary using promotions will still be a viable option.

Whilst these are just rumours at the moment, we expect an announcement to come in the following weeks. If these changes were to come to fruition, could this potentially open the door to even more changes? Unfortunately we don’t quite have the answer to that, but once the floodgates are open, who knows what could happen.

Although it is great to see some of the more challenging restrictions being walked back, it is playing with peoples livelihoods, and many retailers simply cannot plan ahead with constant changes.