Waitrose’s Good Health initiative, which is designed to help shoppers easily identify healthier choices, has been updated to include ingredient criteria alongside nutritional criteria.

With a logo refresh, the focus of Good Health has shifted from traditional low-calorie and low-fat metrics towards positive nutrition and ingredient transparency.

The update comes as Waitrose research revealed that 93 per cent of its ‘Food Lovers’ prioritise avoiding ultra-processed foods and actively check product ingredient lists.

Joanne Lunn, lead nutritionist at Waitrose, commented: “Our customers look to us for guidance when it comes to making healthy choices, and this move enables us to support Food Lovers to identify even better choices.

“The new yellow Good Health logo will be easily identifiable across a wide variety of Waitrose products, and will highlight healthy choices which have been labelled according to the new criteria of both ingredients as well as nutrition. ”

Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free

Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning

To carry the updated Good Health logo on pack, products must satisfy two benchmarks:

• Ingredient standards: Zero additives or less recognisable ingredients, removing markers commonly associated with ultra-processed foods.
• Nutrition standards: Must carry at least one valid health/nutrition claim, classify as non-HFSS (not high in fat, sugar, or salt) under the UK government’s Nutrient Profile Score, and feature zero red traffic lights – with exceptions granted only for naturally occurring fats (e.g., nuts, seeds, avocados, milk, fish) and naturally occurring sugars. Amber traffic lights for saturated fat are only permitted if no added saturated fats are present.

“The labelling of healthy choices has evolved over the years. While the focus used to be on low calories and low fat options, we’re seeing customer demand shift towards more positive nutrition and a raised consideration of ingredients, which is why we are expanding our Good Health logo criteria to include ingredients as well as nutrition,” added Lunn.

The rollout of the new Good Health logo builds upon Waitrose’s ongoing additive reduction programme, which has improved the recipes of 110 own label products, removing 220 unnecessary additives over the past 20 months.

Earlier this month, Waitrose introduced a new £18 No.1 Takeaway Meal Deal as its research revealed almost two thirds of consumers are eating out less often.