Walk through any major Australian supermarket and you’ll be hit with a wall of colour — bright packets of chips, sugary drinks, chocolates and lollies screaming for attention. It’s not by accident. It’s a business model built on addiction and impulse. And it’s costing our children their health.
A recent national report, Inside Our Supermarkets Australia 2024, revealed that unhealthy products are promoted twice as often as healthy foods. Chips, soft drinks and confectionery dominate the end-of-aisle displays, checkouts, and catalogues — the most visible and tempting places in every store. Price promotions tell the same story: 29% of unhealthy items are on sale at any given time compared to just 15% of healthy staples like fruit, vegetables and whole grains. The discounts are deeper too — often 25–30% off for junk food versus half that for nutritious options.
It’s a strategy designed to move product, not to nourish people. Supermarkets know exactly what sells and where to place it — and they’re weaponising that knowledge against public health. Every chocolate bar stacked at a child’s eye level, every two-for-one deal on soft drinks, every brightly coloured checkout lane is an ad campaign aimed squarely at families trying to get through the weekly shop.
And it’s working. Australia now ranks among the world’s most overweight nations. Two-thirds of adults and one in four children are overweight or obese, with soaring rates of type-2 diabetes, heart disease and fatty liver disease. These are not random outcomes; they are the direct result of a food environment engineered for profit.
Even more alarming is the lack of regulation. Unlike the UK, where rules restrict promotions for high-fat, sugar and salt foods at checkouts, Australian supermarkets are left to “self-regulate.” Predictably, that’s resulted in token gestures — a few healthy snacks near the front, but the junk remains front and centre.
If supermarkets truly cared about families, they would promote affordable healthy options, restrict junk near checkouts, and run campaigns that teach good eating habits. Instead, they continue to exploit the very consumers they claim to serve — prioritising profit margins over the wellbeing of Australian children.
Because right now, the message from our supermarkets is clear: your kids’ health is just another product to be sold.
