Welcome to Sauce Shed’s HFSS Score Calculator! Our free-to-use calculator allows you to quickly and easily calculate the Healthiness Score of your food or drink based on the UK government’s Nutrient Profiling Model.
Using our calculator is simple – just enter the amount of energy, saturated fat, total sugar, sodium, fruit and vegetable content, NSP fibre, and/or AOAC fibre of your food or drink, and the calculator will provide you with an overall score.
You can use this score to determine if your product is considered “less healthy” or “junk food” according to the HFSS regulations.
Foods scoring 4 or more points and drinks scoring 1 or more points are classified as HFSS.
If you need more in-depth support or guidance, please contact Sauce Shed for assistance.
INTRODUCTION
The government consulted in 2019 on restricting the promotion of HFSS products by volume price (for example, multibuy offers such as ‘buy one get one free’) and location, both online and in store.
The government then consulted on technical enforcement of the restrictions in 2020.
Following these consultations, the government introduced legislation to restrict the promotion of HFSS products by volume price (for example, ‘buy one get one free’) and location, both online and in store in England. (HFSS is otherwise known as ‘less healthy food and drink’ and is referred to as such in the nutrient profiling technical guidance 2011.) The restriction of HFSS products by location will come into force on 1 October 2022. The restriction of HFSS products by volume price will come into force on 1 October 2023.
Evidence shows that food retail price promotions are widespread and effective at influencing food preferences and purchases (particularly for children). Previous reports recommended that reducing and rebalancing promotions towards healthier food and drink is essential to help reduce children’s sugar and calorie intakes, and help tackle obesity.
Furthermore, the shopping environment plays an important part in the way products are marketed to us, with simple factors such as the location of products within stores significantly affecting what we buy. The current retail promotional environment:
- does not always align with government healthy eating guidelines
- makes it harder for families to make healthier choices when shopping
Compliance by industry with the promotion and placement regulations can significantly improve our food environment by ensuring healthier food is more easily accessible and more visible in shops, ultimately supporting people to lead healthier lives.
This guidance helps to illustrate how the regulations restrict promotions of HFSS or ‘less healthy’ products by:
- volume price – for example, multibuy offers
- key locations (store entrances, aisle ends and checkouts) when retail stores are over 185.8 square metres (m2) (or 2,000 square feet (sq ft)) and the equivalent key locations online
These restrictions apply to medium and large businesses (with 50 employees or more). Failure to comply with regulations may result in a business being issued with an improvement notice and subsequently a fixed monetary penalty if compliance is not achieved as required.
In addition to our duty under the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 (RESA) to review the regulations, the government is also required to undertake a further post-implementation review of the regulations every 5 years and publish a report setting out the conclusions of the review.
RECOMMENDATIONS AND BEST PRACTICE
To help illustrate the regulations as clearly as possible, this guidance provides:
- recommendations
- examples of best practice
- practical examples for businesses to consider
Recommendations and best practice examples outlined in this guidance are not legal requirements of the regulations. Where references are made to nutrient profiling model (NPM) calculations and scores, retailers are expected to check the scores for each product they are assessing.
DEFINITIONS
FOOD
For the purposes of these regulations, ‘food’ includes food and drink. For clarity we have often used ‘food and drink’ in this guidance but, unless otherwise stated, references to ‘food’, including where quoting other documents, include food and drink.
CONSUMER
The regulations use the definition of ‘consumer’ as given in section 2(3) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. This defines ‘consumer’ as an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside that individual’s trade, business, craft or profession.
ONLINE MARKETPLACE
For the purposes of the regulations, ‘online marketplace’ means any software (including a website, part of a website or an application) that is used to offer the qualifying business’s products for sale to consumers. Qualifying business’s products can include any product sold by a qualifying business, including own brand and other branded products.
PREPACKED FOOD
‘Prepacked’ is defined as in article 2(2)(e) of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the provision of food information to consumers:
‘prepacked food’ means any single item for presentation as such to the final consumer and to mass caterers, consisting of a food and the packaging into which it was put before being offered for sale, whether such packaging encloses the food completely or only partially, but in any event in such a way that the contents cannot be altered without opening or changing the packaging
For the purposes of both the retained Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 on food information to consumers and the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021, ‘prepacked food’ does not cover foods packed on the sales premises at the consumer’s request or prepacked for direct sale.