nickshanagher

Betty McBride, policy and communication director of the British Heart Foundation, has written to the FT today to attack the food industry for its objections to traffic lights labels appearing on food. Shopkeepers need to watch this pressure for regulation closely. She was responding to an FT column which highlighted discussions in Brussells over what a portion was: one biscuit or three. It depends, the industry suggests. Ms McBride disagrees and is happy to define "realistic portions". "Independent research has shown that a combination of traffic light colours, guideline daily amounts, and the words high, medium and low would be the best way to give shoppers the at-a-glance information they want," she writes in support of labeling. The industry, she suggests, desires to "deliberately confuse people about how unhealthy some of its products are." The danger of her words is real. For example, in Scotland, the government has suggested it might remove confectio...

With a bricks-and-mortar store, where you locate is a big decision, fixed by your capital investment. On-line, location can be changed at the click of a button. I have the opportunity to move to a new space on the betterretailing site that will be launched later this month. The benefits will be that this blog will appear alongside others that will tackle different aspects of strategy and tactics for local retailers, including a new blog by Steve Denham. It is exciting for me and should help readers find even more good stuff, near at hand. I am also looking forward to coaching from Sam on how to make these short items even more useful, such as embedding links. Just as retailers may benefit from a good mix of footfall driving shops near them, so too on the web. Fingers crossed.