Nutrition

We offer a wider range of products for people with allergies than any other Swiss retailer. We do this because more than three million people living in Switzerland suffer from allergies or food intolerances. By transparently declaring allergens on packaging and with our Free From range, we support customers with special nutritional needs while they are shopping.

We have been using «lactose-free» and «gluten-free» labels on our other own-label brands such as Karma, Betty Bossi and Fine Food since 2017, and we also stock a variety of gluten-free and lactose-free branded products.

We believe it is important to have clear, honest and unambiguous labelling. For this reason, in 2007, we became the first retailer in Switzerland to introduce a «Food Profile» system for nutrition labelling. It shows how much energy, fat, saturated fatty acids, sugar, salt and other ingredients are contained in food products. This provides transparent information for our customers and helps them to follow a balanced and healthy diet.

Our vegetarian and vegan products are certified by the European Vegetarian Union and are marked with its «V» label. For many other specialist products we use the Swiss Allergy Label created by the aha! Swiss Allergy Centre foundation.

We constantly check and improve the recipes of our own-label brand products, engaging in in-depth discussion with our suppliers to do so. For us, improved food composition means fewer additives, less sugar, less salt and, wherever possible, nutritionally valuable fats. Each year we re-examine the composition of our own-label brand products and wherever possible improve the recipe with regard to the fat, sugar, dietary fibre and protein content. We apply the principle of «As little as possible, as much as necessary!» to ensure sensible use of additives in our own-label brands.

In response to actionsanté, the federal health initiative, we are reducing the sugar content of our yogurts and cereals and stipulating a maximum permitted sugar content. This is another important way of helping people eat healthily.

Various cooperation arrangements with nutrition organizations enable us to exchange expertise and scientific findings and thus continuously optimize our range and increase the amount of information we can offer. We have been working closely for many years with the key Swiss institutions involved in nutrition. For example:

• To encourage consumers to eat more fruit and vegetables, we are involved in the 5 a Day campaign run by the Swiss Cancer League, offering practical 5 a Day carrier bags.
  
• We are an active member of actionsanté. This initiative of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) has, together with companies, promoted a healthy lifestyle in Switzerland since 2009.
  
• We cooperate closely with the Swiss Society for Nutrition Research SGE in order to help raise awareness of the need for a balanced diet and to work on developing new product lines.
  
• Together with the patients' organization IG Zöliakie der Deutschschweiz (Swiss Coeliac Association in German-speaking Switzerland), we support activities to provide information about a gluten-free diet.
  
• We are also a member of the Federation of the Swiss Food Industry (fial), which actively seeks solutions that take the greatest possible account of the market as well as the concerns of a healthy lifestyle.

We use brochures, newsletters and talks to give our customers practical kitchen know-how and basic knowledge about nutrition. We work closely with the Swiss Association of Registered Dieticians (SVDE) to help pass on knowledge to specific target groups and increase their competency in nutrition. As a partner of the Cleven Foundation's «fit4future» project we enable children aged between 6 and 12 to attend sensory workshops and cooking courses.