‘Rising investor concerns’ over the health impacts of companies such as Tesco had led the supermarket giant to announce aims to increase its proportion of sales from healthier products to 65% between now and 2025.
Tesco says it has committed to publishing its strategy to achieve this target and will report annually on progress, as requested by a health-based shareholder resolution which was filed in February.
ShareAction Group, which spearheaded a coalition of shareholders, challenged Tesco over the role it plays in the obesity crisis across the UK in a health-based shareholder resolution.
ShareAction’s position is that Tesco has ‘an outsized influence on the nation’s health’ – representing 27% of the British grocery market – and it therefore welcomes calls the announcement a ‘welcome step’.
The scope of the supermarket’s proposed methodology for categorizing products as ‘healthier’ will be put to the company’s shareholders at its next AGM in order to better understand how it plans to define the healthiness of a food item. ShareAction states the investor group ‘looks forward to continuing engagement with Tesco to address remaining questions’ over the retailer’s plans.
