Sugar Free Checkouts

Dear Here to Help,

Week in, week out, I have to put up with a colourful assault on my senses when I go through the supermarket checkouts. Not to mention kids screaming at parents for all that colourful, sugary badness. I can’t be the only person who hates this part of shopping. Surely, this is something the government should put a stop to!

Thank you for your query.

Sugar at the checkouts has been a topic of discussion for some years. About ten years ago, the large supermarket chains advertised “confectionery-free checkouts” and used signage to designate those checkouts. However, as you note, this seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Some people noted that the “confectionery free checkouts” often offered other sugary or calorie-dense products, such as soft drinks or muesli bars.

One of the really interesting parts of government, or public policy, is where to draw the line between personal, corporate, community and government responsibility and actions. We have all seen the “power of the people” again and again in campaigns that make corporations, governments and/or the community stand up, take notice and change things.

Let’s look at some examples. One of my favourites is the community “tampon tax” campaign to have GST removed from female sanitary products. Many essential health products, and even non-essential products like erectile dysfunction pills, have always been GST free. However, the Howard government chose to apply GST to female sanitary products. The history of the tax is fascinating and there was some interesting analysis at the time about Howard’s motives for this. Fast forward to a few years ago and the GST law was changed.

Big companies have become more environmentally friendly in their messaging because the community called for them to take more environmental responsibility. Interestingly, the marketing and sales power of “green” has prompted the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission to announce investigations into “greenwashing”. Are companies simply claiming to be environmentally friendly, or are they actually doing it? Does “100% recyclable” on packaging actually help the environment?

Back to public policy and what governments should and should not do. It is generally accepted that self-regulation is a better strategy than government regulation. You may have noticed that government over the past few years has increased regulation on small businesses, while still preferring self-regulation for big business. Most supermarkets are big businesses.

My advice to you would be to speak to your favourite supermarkets and let them know that you want sugar-free check-out options that are well signposted. This might involve in-person communications with store managers, approaches to their national team, and/or comments on their social media pages. Get your friends and acquaintances to help. Big business does listen to consumers, if the consumer voice is loud enough.

If this doesn’t work, your other option is your local government members. Generally, their first response will be to refer the matter to the relevant Minister, who will respond to you with a generic message that probably talks about self-regulation. If you feel strongly about it, keep pushing and remember that the “tampon tax” took decades to undo. In 2018, the community campaign was successful.

This article comes from my column entitled "Here to Help" in Hunter Local, June 2023. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to "Here to Help" and let's see what we can achieve.

Elaine Abery has a closet full of great ideas and empowering solutions. She’s also the Director of Unravelling Red Tape, a company dedicated to helping everyday people, not-for-profits and companies change the world through improved decision-making and legislation.