Sweets to stay at Irish checkouts

A blanket ban on sweets at supermarket checkouts is unlikely in Ireland anytime soon judging by the responses of major retailers to an Irish Examiner query asking if they were considering such a ban.

While German discount retailers Aldi and Lidl are trialling sweet-free checkouts throughout Britain, their introduction here is dependent on how successful the ban is across the water.

Tesco said 60% of its stores did not sell sweets at the checkouts and that in the remaining stores they “ensure that at least half of the checkouts are sweet free”.

Musgrave Retail Group, which includes SuperValu and Centra, said it “recommends that retailers offer customers the choice of using sweet-free checkouts, which are offered in a number of SuperValu stores nationwide”.

Dunnes Stores failed to respond.