As part of the forthcoming 10-Year Health Plan, large retailers including supermarkets will be set a new standard to make the average shopping basket of goods sold slightly healthier.

Businesses will be given the freedom to meet the standard however works best for them, whether that is reformulating products and tweaking recipes, changing shop layouts, offering discounts on healthy foods, or changing loyalty schemes to promote healthier options.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, said: ‘Our brilliant supermarkets already do so much work for our communities and are trying to make their stores heathier, and we want to work with them and other businesses to create a level playing field.

‘Through our new healthy food standard, we will make the healthy choice the easy choice, because prevention is better than cure.

‘By shifting from sickness to prevention through our Plan for Change, we will make sure the NHS can be there for us when we need it.'

Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: ‘Our food strategy will bring together the health plan, food producers and retailers to make sure we can feed the nation more healthily while growing the economic success of our food sector.

‘The policy will see all big food businesses report on healthy food sales. This will set full transparency and accountability around the food that businesses are selling and encourage healthier products.

‘The government will then set targets to increase the healthiness of sales in communities across the UK and work with the Food Strategy Advisory Board on the sequencing of this policy.' 

Sarah Price, NHS England director for public health, said: ‘This move to make it easier for people to shop for healthy and nutritious food options is so important – it will help people reduce the risk of developing a range of life-altering physical conditions, such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes – both of which are on the increase in England.'

Major investment firms have already signalled that they would be keen to invest more in healthier products, if they were given due prominence and promotion by food retailers.

Many supermarkets want to do more to make the average shopping basket healthier, but they risk changes hitting their bottom lines if their competitors don't act at the same time. The new standard will introduce a level playing field, so there isn't a first mover disadvantage.

Ken Murphy, Tesco Group chief executive, said: ‘All food businesses have a critical part to play in providing good quality, affordable and healthy food. At Tesco, we have measured and published our own healthier food sales for a number of years now - we believe it is key to more evidence-led policy and better-targeted health interventions. That's why we have called for mandatory reporting for all supermarkets and major food businesses and why we welcome the Government's announcement on this. We look forward to working with them on the detail of the Healthy Food Standard and its implementation by all relevant food businesses.'

Simon Roberts, chief executive of Sainsbury's, added: ‘We're passionate about making good food joyful, accessible and affordable for everyone and have been championing the need for mandatory health reporting, across the food industry for many years. Today's announcement from Government is an important and positive step forward in helping the nation to eat well. We need a level playing field across the entirety of our food sector for these actions to have a real and lasting impact. 

‘We look forward to working across Government and our wider industry on the further development of these policies and in helping to drive improved health outcomes across our nation.'

In response, Hugh Alderwick, director of Policy at the Health Foundation, said: 'This needs to be part of a much wider package of measures to tackle obesity across the population, including stronger powers for local authorities to promote healthier food environments, investment in local public health services, and bolder use of tax and regulation, learning from the successful example of the soft drinks industry levy. Government will also need to be clear on how they will enforce the new standards for retailers and manufacturers — not relying on industry self-regulation that we have seen in the past has been largely unsuccessful.

'Stronger, more interventionist policy action is also needed on other major risk factors for disease, like alcohol use — alongside broader policies to improve the underlying social and economic conditions that shape health and inequalities, like improving housing and tackling poverty.'