The recent credit crunch has led all the major supermarket chains in the UK to increase promotions of cheap, unhealthy food, according to the country's National Consuner Council (NCC).

Fatty and sugary food products now make up over half (54 per cent) of in-store supermarket promotions, nearly double the number recorded in the last survey in 2006. Morrisons is the worst offender with a 63 per cent of their promotions featuring sugary and fatty foods, according to figures published by the organisation in Cut-price, what cost? Only one in eight of retailers’ promotions featured fruit and vegetables, a long way from 33 per cent - the minimum recommended level that these food groups should make up of our total diet.

The report rates the UK’s top eight supermarkets on how they help their customers eat more healthily.

Sainsbury’s comes top for the second time in a row, making good progress in labelling and nutrition, and scoring highly on customer information. The Co-op comes a close second, with a big improvement on its 2006 score. Tesco, with the biggest market share in the UK, is fifth falling down on labelling and the nutrition content of its own-label products. Morrisons comes last for the fourth time in a row.

"The volume of in-house promotions for fatty and sugary foods the supermarkets are all offering is staggering. We expected to see evidence of big improvements since our last investigation, but we’ve been sadly disappointed," said Lucy Yates, the report’s author.

"With so many of us buying our food in these supermarkets, their collective behaviour can heavily influence the nation’s eating habits."
All retailers made improvements in the salt content of their standard products since 2006 with Asda, the Co-op and Sainsbury’s close to meeting the targets set by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

The NCC is calling on all the major retailers to ensure that: at least 33 per cent of price promotions are for fruit and vegetables, and that they run fewer multi-buy promotions on fatty and sugary foods; they remove all unhealthy snacks and sweets from checkouts; they move faster in reducing salt, fat, saturated fat and sugar in own-brand products; and that they roll out front-of-pack traffic light labelling to help shoppers improve the balance of their diets.