Last year we became the first retailer to remove all artificial colours and flavours, flavour enhancers, the artificial sweetener Aspartame and hydrogenated vegetable oil from our 12,000-strong range of own brand products.
We invested more than £30 million in reformulating products and ensuring that they still tasted great.
Artificial colours have been removed and in some cases replaced with natural colours, such as fruit and vegetable extracts.
Artificial flavours have, where necessary, been replaced with flavours from natural sources. For example vanilla, which is sourced naturally, has replaced the artificially produced Vanillin, which is commonly used in chocolate products.
We have also removed all hydrogenated fat from our own label products.
1 Comment for "No artificial colours and flavours but still tasting great"
I applaud the use of clear labelling using GDAs etc., which is very useful indeed but having bought a pack of 2 Asda reduced fat skinny berry muffins, I am disappointed to find that the information on them is rather sparse re content (there is no way I could read it in store, even with glasses – I’ve had to use a magnifier). The ingredients are all there and I know the pack is small but there IS room for the GDA info. What is on it is not given per muffin – making it difficult to calculate. I know baked products like this can vary a little individually but it must be possible to give an approximate serving size. The nutritional info only gives Kcal, protein, carbohydrate and fat – nothing re saturated fat contents, sugars or sodium/salt. This product is aimed at those of us who are trying to reduce our intake of fats etc., but the vital information is missing. I am using the new Active Health product for Nintendo DS, which allows me to input customised items using their nutritional information – and I can’t do it accurately for this product – which will probably mean I won’t buy it again – which is a shame. One last point – it would be really, really useful if the weight of items could be put on those products that don’t currently have it. I do appreciate the improved labelling and it would be superlative with a little tweaking.