Beneath the label - are snack bars really as healthy as they seem?

Despite years of efforts to make snacks healthier, supermarket shelves remain dominated by products high in sugars, saturated fat and calories. The UK’s continued reliance on voluntary reformulation and an outdated Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) is failing to protect the public from these excessive levels.

Snack bars, often sold as cereal or protein bars, sit awkwardly between health food and confectionery. Over recent years, they have drastically increased in popularity and availability, and they are often marketed as convenient, nutritious options, yet many are anything but. In 2021, Action on Salt and Sugar’s report with BiteBack found 8 in 10 young people believe cereal bars to be a healthy choice, and with the rise of the UK’s obsession with protein, around one fifth of consumers are now reporting to eat a protein bar at least once a week, rising to 54% amongst those aged 25 to 34.

These products are everywhere, available across supermarkets, convenience stores and in leisure centres. One of the key things that unifies these bars is their heavy use of health, nutrition, and marketing claims. You name it, and a snack bar will likely feature it. Our latest report looking at 458 snack bars collected from major retailers, found that over half (53%) of all products featured a “protein” claim, 18% had a “high in fibre” claim, and 25% were labelled “low sugar” or “no added sugar”.

But what is really hiding between these healthy-sounding labels? Our report paints a different picture. Over half (55%) of snack bars surveyed were high in saturated fat, and more than a third (37%) were high in sugars, based on the UK’s front-of-pack colour-coded labelling system. Additionally, amongst those featuring a “high-fibre” claim, nearly a third (31%) were actually high in sugars.

These claims are not necessarily untrue or incorrect, but they are deeply misleading. They create a health halo, which is a false impression that a product is healthier than it really is. Under the government’s own NPM, almost two-thirds (64%) of these snack bars would not pass the government’s definition of ‘healthy’, meaning they should not be promoted in store or advertised within public and online spaces.

These findings highlight a clear policy gap. Despite almost a decade of voluntary reformulation efforts, the products available to consumers remain misaligned with UK public health goals. A snack bar high in sugars should not be allowed to position or market itself as a ‘healthy’ snacking option simply because it contains some fibre or protein. Consumers deserve to make a fully informed choice without the influence of marketing claims exploiting their desire to eat healthily.

Since the sugar reduction programme’s launch in 2016, the food industry has had almost 10 years to reduce the amount of sugar in its products, yet as we’re seeing today, progress has been minimal. The current NPM guidelines and voluntary targets lack both the scope and enforcement to make meaningful change, and public health continues to pay the price.  

To change our broken food system, the government must introduce ambitious reduction targets and fiscal levies on unhealthy foods. They must harness clear and non-negotiable front-of-pack colour coded labelling and mandated healthy-sales reporting to create greater food and industry transparency. Doing so will not only better motivate companies to want to reduce the red colour labels of sugar, salt and fat, but also enable reformulation across all products and drive genuine accountability. Similarly, to tackle the ongoing problem of misleading marketing, health and nutrition claims must be restricted to products that are genuinely low in salt, sugar and saturated fat, putting an end to misleading “health halos” on foods.  

Consumers are entitled to control what they eat and the steps to creating a better food system have never been clearer. The government have all the tools and knowledge needed to achieve this - now they just need to put it into action.

Read Action on Salt and Sugar’s new report here