Food (Promotion and Placement) (Scotland) Regulations 2025: business and regulatory impact assessment

2. Purpose and Intended Effect

2.1 Background

The Scottish Government and COSLA co-authored Population Health Framework sets out diet and healthy weight as one of two population health priorities. Tackling obesity and increasing population levels of healthy weight is key to improvement in health at a population level.

As part of a range of action to improve diet and create a food environment that encourages healthier choices, restricting promotions of less healthy food and drink at the point of purchase seeks to reduce the purchase (and consumption) of food and drink that is high in fat, sugar or salt (HFSS), given the public health harm associated with their overconsumption.

In February 2024, the consultation on the detail of proposed regulations to restrict HFSS promotions was published alongside a partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA). This final BRIA should be read alongside the analysis set out in the partial BRIA on the range of options set out in the 2024 consultation. The 12 week consultation closed on 21 May 2024. Independent analysis and the Scottish Government response to issues raised during public consultation are available on the Scottish Government website.

The Partial BRIA published on 27 February 2024 included analysis of the range of policy proposals set out in the 2024 consultation. Scottish Ministers set out their intention to take forward a number of these proposals to come into force in October 2026, with some proposals for instance on the restriction of meal deal offers or temporary price reductions (TPRs) to be considered further as part of future activity to improve the food environment.

2.2 Objective

The primary aim of this policy is to reduce the public health harms associated with the excess consumption of calories, fat, sugar and salt including the risks of developing obesity, type 2 diabetes, various types of cancer and other conditions such as cardiovascular disease. The regulations are part of a wide-ranging suite of actions to support healthier diets and healthy weight. This policy is also aimed at reducing diet-related health inequalities, including in relation to socioeconomic disadvantage.

The food environment and the options available and promoted to us shape our health. It is often skewed towards the promotion of less healthy food and drink, which can encourage people to purchase more than they need or intend and consume additional calories.

By restricting promotions on high fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) foods, the policy aim is to shift the balance of promotions towards healthier options, making it easier for people to reduce volume and impulse purchase of HFSS food and drink and make healthier choices. Evidence indicates that action to improve the food environment will contribute to improvements in population levels of healthy weight – in line with the priority set out in the Population Health Framework.

The Framework is based on five key interconnected prevention drivers of health and wellbeing:

• Prevention Focused System
• Social and Economic Factors
• Places and Communities
• Enabling Healthy Living
• Equitable Access to Health and Care

Restricting the promotions of less healthy food and drink has been identified as an early priority action under the Framework.

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 provides the framework for clear, consistent and coherent future Scottish food policy including cross-public agency action to improve the food environment. These Regulations are part of cross-government action to achieve this aim.

Restricting the promotion of less healthy food and drink is a population level intervention and is expected to have a positive impact on public health across population groups. Focusing on transforming the food environment is more likely to help improve diet and weight and be more effective in reducing health inequality than only encouraging individual behaviour change.

Regulations will make it easier for people to make healthier food choices by:

• targeting food categories that are significant contributors of calories, fat and sugar to the Scottish diet and are the food categories of ‘most concern to childhood obesity’ as described in the UK-wide reformulation programmes;
• restricting promotions of pre-packed food and drink products within targeted food categories that are high in fat, sugar, or salt (HFSS);
• restricting certain price promotions of targeted HFSS foods, such as multi-buy offers (for example buy one get one free) and free refills of soft drinks with added sugar; 
• restricting the placement of targeted HFSS foods in prominent locations in store and online.

Location restrictions – where a product can be displayed - will not apply to the following for practical considerations:

• specialist retailers (e.g. chocolatiers, confectioners, cake shops); and
• stores with a floor area of less than 185.8 m² (2,000 sq. ft).

The promotion and location restrictions (with the exception of the restriction on free refills of soft drinks with added sugar) will apply to businesses with 50 or more employees that offer prepacked targeted HFSS foods to the public, both in store and online (excluding out-of-home businesses such as restaurants, cafes and takeaways).

The restriction on free refills of soft drinks with added sugar will apply to business with 50 or more employees that offer such soft drinks for sale to the public (in store).

Where businesses operate under a franchise or franchise like agreement, the employees of the businesses operating under those agreements are treated as employees of the franchisor and not of separate businesses, for calculating whether the franchisor business has 50 or more employees.

Scottish Government plans for restriction of promotions align with equivalent policies to restrict promotion of less healthy food and drink in England and in Wales.

Policy landscape across the UK

UK Government

The UK Government introduced regulations to restrict the promotion of targeted HFSS foods by location and volume price in England - The Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/1368). Location promotion restrictions came into force in October 2022, and the price promotion restrictions came into force in October 2025.

Welsh Government

In February 2025 the Welsh Government laid draft regulations to restrict price promotions and placement of targeted HFSS foods, in-store and online (regs were approved by the Senedd on 25 Mar 2025), with a 12 month window for implementation. Regulations will come into force in Wales in March 2026.

2.3 Rationale for Government intervention

In June 2025, Scotland's Population Health Framework was published setting out the Scottish Government’s cross-government and cross-sector approach to improving population health over the next decade. The Framework focuses on prevention by tackling the root causes of poor health including action to support health promoting environments.

To contribute to the Scottish Government’s aim of improving life expectancy and reducing inequalities the Framework identifies and priorities action to “develop a whole system approach to improve food environments; ensure a healthy, balanced diet is accessible and affordable to all; and improve population levels of healthy weight.”

Most adults and a substantial proportion of children in Scotland are not a healthy weight. In 2024, two thirds (66%) of adults in Scotland were living with overweight or obesity, a figure that has remained broadly similar over the past 10 years. Almost a third (31%) of adults were living with obesity, up from 24% in 2003. A third (33%) of children were at risk of overweight (including obesity) and 18% at risk of obesity.^[1]

Obesity is defined by the World Health Organisation as a disease characterised by excess adiposity that can impair health. It is a “chronic, relapsing disease resulting from complex interactions between a range of factors, including those that occur at a biological, commercial, social and political level.”^[2] Obesity is classified as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 kg/m² or more.

The health effects caused by overweight and obesity are clearly evidenced^[3]. Research has shown that more than 1 in 20 adult cancer cases are linked to excess weight in the UK making obesity possibly the second largest preventable cause of cancer.^[4] Obesity, independently of diet, has also been linked to development of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and hypertension.^[5]

Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, diabetes and kidney diseases have been highlighted by a Global Burden of Disease 2019^[6] study as key causes of death attributable to high body mass index, and obesity is among the leading risk factors associated with disease or injury, accounting for 6.3% of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in 2019.

Children at risk of obesity can experience an increased risk of fractures, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, asthma as well as negative psychological effects including lower wellbeing and self-esteem during the childhood years^[7]. Children with obesity are very likely to be adults with obesity and are also at a higher risk of developing NCDs in adulthood.^[8]

Regular overconsumption of HFSS foods is one of the key factors leading to weight gain and obesity.^[9] As a nation Scotland has consistently not met the dietary goals since they were set in 1996.^[10] These goals describe, in nutritional terms, the diet that will improve and support the health of the Scottish population. Average diets in Scotland remain too high in calories, fat, sugar and salt which can have serious consequences for health.^[11]

Some studies describe the current food environment as one where consumers are exposed to significant overt and subliminal promotion activities and cues, generally reinforcing purchasing behaviour focused on unhealthy products.^[12] These unhealthy foods high in fat, sugar or salt contribute disproportionately to intakes of calories fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt.^[13]

Evidence highlights that sales promotions are intended to encourage the impulsive purchases of products or encourage purchases more often or in greater volumes than would take place without the presence of the promotion, and that sales promotions aim to increase the appeal and recall of a product to consumers.^[14]

Promotions can take many forms but include price promotions (e.g. offering 2 of a product for a specific price, offering extra volume of a product for no extra cost etc.) as well as location promotions which attempt to place products at locations most likely to encourage consumers to make an impulsive purchase. This includes areas such as near the point of sale, at the front of a store etc.

Less healthy foods are promoted much more frequently than healthier products.^[15] Regulating marketing, for example by deciding who can be marketed to and through which channels, can therefore be used as a means to influence health behaviours.^[16]

One of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) best buy policies for improving diet in children is to protect them from harmful food marketing.^[17] The WHO also states that policies to restrict food marketing are most effective if they are mandatory, protect children of all ages, use a government-led nutrient profile model to classify foods to be restricted, and are sufficiently comprehensive to minimise the risk of migration to other age groups or media.^[18]

Economic modelling based on purchasing data in Scotland from 2013 to 2018 has estimated that removal of volume price promotions such as multi-buy and “Y for £X”, on discretionary foods, has the potential to reduce calorie intake by 155 calories per person per week.^[19]

There continues to be a significant level of engagement and work with industry to encourage voluntary action to support healthy eating. While this has resulted in some action, such as voluntary reformulation of some products, it has not been sufficient to deliver the scale and pace of change needed.

Food Standards Scotland states that “evidence on voluntary approaches overall is not good,” specifically citing the “poor response from industry” to the Scottish Government’s Supporting Healthy Choices framework.^[20]

The Scottish Government therefore considers regulation to restrict the promotion of HFSS food and drink is proportionate and necessary given population level consumptions of less healthy foods and levels of obesity and overweight.