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Retail landscape lacks nutritious and affordable food, says ATNi

A rapid increase in modern food retail has given retailers growing influence over consumer diets, according to global non-profit ATNi’s latest assessment.

In its Retail Assessment 2025 report, which seeks to understand how food policies, practices, and products affect access to nutritious and affordable food, the organisation analysed over 18,000 private-label products, evaluating the influence of 18 leading retailers across six countries on the availability of items in the healthy food and better-for-you categories.

It explored how retail behaviour and choice, including product healthiness, marketing, and pricing, affect shoppers’ ability to find food that satisfies both their health and financial demands, looking at companies’ nutrition policies, promoted products, and pricing models, as well as the relative costs of healthy eating, along with government policies.

It found that retailers’ product selections, promotions, pricing strategies, and store design drive consumer demand and purchasing patterns, and concluded by arguing that industry collaboration is vital to overcoming unaffordability, inequity, and fragmented regulation.

Healthier diets are less affordable

The report examined how the food industry and wider macro-environment could improve the food retail landscape and best support a transition towards healthier, more affordable retail environments.

The researchers found that healthier diets remain less affordable for consumers than unhealthier diets. Across the six countries and 18 retailers analysed, baskets containing more nutritious food products were 10 to 60% more expensive than baskets containing less nutritious products.

In 2024, the daily cost of consumers’ baskets ranged from $10.76 to $27.58 for healthier baskets and from $8.74 to $20.84 for less healthy baskets. France had the lowest-cost baskets, while Kenya had the most expensive.

In high-income countries, both healthy and unhealthy baskets made up less than 10% of consumers’ daily income.

In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the cost of baskets containing less nutritious food items ranges from 36% to 117% of a shopper’s daily per capita gross national income. Baskets with more nutritious food took a larger share of consumers’ daily income and were less affordable, ranging from 53 to 154% of daily per capita income.

However, in wealthier countries, the researchers found a strong relationship between affordability and inequity. Consumers in low-income households and minority groups face barriers to accessing nutritious foods, despite the prevalence and proximity of convenient modern retailers.

Private labels prove problematic

ATNI’s research found that overall, private-label products are predominantly unhealthy.

Accounting for 20 to 40% of grocery spending in mature markets and expanding rapidly in emerging ones, the researchers found that fewer than half (41%) of retailers’ private-label portfolios met a healthy standard.

The researchers used a Health Star Rating that indicates a product must be 3.5 or higher out of 5 to show its nutritional value.

Furthermore, 86% of the private-label products the researchers assessed were identified as unhealthy ultra-processed foods (UPFs). These were products that were high in fat, sugar, salt, and/or containing additives such as colours, flavours, and sweeteners.

Private-label products play a key role in society’s shift to healthier retail environments. They help to determine the healthiness, affordability, and, therefore, appeal of food items.

Food retailers in higher-income countries (HICs) offer a far broader range of private-label products than in LMICs, where the number of items remains small. Although the scale of these products varies, a similar picture emerges: a limited number meet the ‘healthier thresholds’ set out for nutrient profile models.

However, compared to ATNi’s Retail Assessment 2024, private-label portfolios appear slightly healthier than producers’ product selection.

Collaboration across food is needed to spur change

In recent years, consumers have faced the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and rising food inflation. Healthier food options remain more expensive than their less healthy counterparts.

For that reason, most of the products stocked and sold by retailers are unhealthy. Promotions that typically favour less nutritious food items also contribute to their presence in shoppers’ baskets.

“Modern retailers have the power to shape consumer diets, yet current practices still favour unhealthy products,” the report read.

Regulations governing retail strategies for product choice, promotion and pricing remain fragmented and largely voluntary. In HICs in particular, ATNi found governments largely favour self-regulation and voluntary measures.

However, LMICs are showing greater progress, with regulations relating to front-of-package labelling, taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages, and restrictions on marketing unhealthy foods on policy leaders’ agendas.

According to ATNi’s recommendations, the sector needs to engage in collaborative action to increase access to healthier foods.

Governments could produce stronger policies, for instance, around mandatory front-of-pack labelling, product placement in stores, and restrictions around marketing unhealthy foods to children, it suggested.

Investors could also push for transparency around product healthiness and demand retailers disclose nutrition-related key performance indicators (KPIs).

ATNi encouraged retailers to embed nutrition into their business strategies. Reformulating products, balancing promotions, and adopting uniform standards for reporting product healthiness are key approaches.

Consumer advocacy groups can use industry tools, such as Open Food Facts, to promote transparency and empower informed consumer choice in their product purchases, it said.