Making good food even better
We remove 716 tons of sugar per year from our customers' baskets.
While sugary foods and drinks can be enjoyable, eating too many can increase your risk of tooth decay, weight gain, and diabetes.
Sugar reduction is an important part of Waitrose & Partners product development and is a key part of our nutrition strategy. We work closely with our suppliers on continuous nutritional improvements
for Waitrose & Partners private label products, which includes removing some of the sugar.
When lowering the amount of sugar in any product, the new recipe always goes to a tasting panel to ensure we maintain flavor and quality.
Early work focused on removing sugar from breakfast cereals and daily yoghurts, which provide important nutrients for the national diet and can be part of a healthy and balanced diet. Waitrose & Partners has also made significant progress in soft drinks, ensuring that we continue to offer options to all of our customers. More recently, our redesign work has focused on frozen desserts, hot cross buns, ice cream and popsicles. We will continue to offer more indulgent foods and beverages alongside many healthier options.
Soft drinks
Since work began in 2015, there are around 480 tons less sugar per year in our soft drink line. Sugar levels have been reduced by an average of 40% across the range.
In 2018, we have already removed 265 tons or 63 million teaspoons of sugar, with the last soda recipes hitting shelves from April.
These products were reformulated before the Tax on the Soft Drink Industry, which took effect on April 6, 2018. The tax may result in a change in the price of soft drinks above certain sugar limits. This additional cost will be used to contribute to government plans to fight childhood obesity.
We've worked hard to review our revenues to ensure that none of our new environmental refrigerants incur the highest tax and 80% of Waitrose & Partners' private-label refrigerant range does not incur on tax.
Breakfast cereals
In 2016, we reviewed our breakfast cereal line and cut sugar into 22 private label recipes by an average of 15%. That work included bran flakes and malted wheat, which now has 30% less sugar.
But we don't stop there. We've since reworked ten more products, including some of our granola and mueslis, with the latest recipes hitting shelves in the spring of 2018. Our work so far has cut 134 tonnes of sugar a year from our customers' shopping baskets.
Yoghurts
Since 2015, we have also reduced sugar in our Low Fat and West Country yogurt lines, achieving an average reduction of 14%. Taking some of the sugar out of our yoghurts saved over 4 million teaspoons of sugar a year.
Ice cream
In 2017, we worked on 15 of our Waitrose, Duchy Organic and Waitrose Dairy essential ice creams and popsicles to develop new recipes with less sugar. This work saw the sugar in Waitrose Vanilla Soft Scoop ice cream cut by 15%, with an overall average sugar reduction of 8% in the new recipes.
Frozen desserts
In September 2017, we lowered the sugar in fifteen Waitrose & Partners chilled desserts by an average of 14% - the equivalent of more than 39 tonnes of sugar per year. Traditional family favorites like Waitrose & Partners Mixed Berry Trifle and Apple Pie, as well as individual desserts like our Cappuccino Mousse, now have less sugar but even more flavor!
Hot cross breads
In January 2018, we removed some of the added sugar from five of our Waitrose & Partners warm cross bread lines. Our Richly Fruity Hot Cross Buns now have 5% less sugar, but we haven't removed any of the delicious fruit.