Sweets and Other Beasts

The 'guilt aisles'

Nothing to do with books...but check out Asda’s corporate affairs spokesperson on Radio 4 Today’s programme this morning stumbling over her words after calling the aisles with sweets next to check outs ‘guilt aisles’.

The piece was about food companies agreeing a standardised labelling system to help consumers choose the healthiest option. ( It’s only taken ten years and will probably take another ten while they argue over the particular shade of red, amber and green and another generation stores up future health problems.)

James Naughtie questioned her as to why Asda was one of the worst offending supermarkets when it came to putting sweets at kid height in check out aisles.

The Asda’s spokesperson must have wanted the ground to swallow her after saying only two out of three aisles were ‘guilt aisles’ and James Naughtie pounced on the obvious interpretation that the others must therefore be ‘not guilty aisles.’

When she found her words again, she went on to say that there is no evidence to suggest that placing sweets next to check outs changes what parents put in their basket.

So, it begs the question; why are they called guilt aisles if it doesn’t increase the number of sweets sold?

Those colourful sweet wrappers must be for decoration only.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm