In a bid to encourage healthier shopping and eating habits, last year’s introduction of High-Fat, Salt, and Sugar (HFSS) regulations have been a major focal point in the retail industry. One year on, we’re exploring how this change has impacted retailers and consumers despite leading non-HFSS-compliant brands reporting average sales hikes of 27%.* 

_{*According to new data from Reapp.} 

What is HFSS? 

Prior to the government stepping in to introduce restrictions, the retail industry was often misaligned with existing government healthy eating guidelines, subsequently making it harder for families to make healthier choices when shopping. 

This led to the development of regulations for restrictions on the promotions and placement of certain foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt or, sugar (HFSS). 

Following consultations in 2019, the government introduced legislation to “restrict the promotion of HFSS products by volume price (for example, ‘buy one get one free’) and location, both online and in-store in England.” 

HFSS is also known as less healthy food and drink and is referred to as such in the nutrient profiling technical guidance 2011. The restriction of HFSS products by location came into force on 1 October 2022 and the restriction by volume price will be effective from 1 October 2025. 

How is HFSS regulated?

HFSS regulations have evolved substantially since the initial consultation in 2019. Various countries, including the UK, have introduced measures to tackle the prevalence and promotion of unhealthy food and drinks, aiming to restrict the marketing, advertising, and sale of HFSS products to consumers. 

The UK’s HFSS advertising ban, which has been delayed from a 2023 enforcement to October 2025, has compelled retailers and manufacturers to reevaluate their product offerings and marketing strategies. This shift has led to a wave of product reformulation, with many brands working to reduce the HFSS content in their products to comply with regulations rather than face promotional restrictions. 

Are brands and retailers noticing the impact?

With retailers being forced to reimagine their in-store layouts, product placements, and promotional strategies, brands have also had to adapt to the restrictions to maintain growth. 

Despite HFSS regulations and price inflation, sales of chocolate saw an additional £50 million over the past year along with chilled desserts boasting a 75% sales hike since the laws came into effect. 

Whilst it’s clear to see these key impulse purchase zones hosting healthier options such as snack bars, these items have seen no benefit from the regulations, with a less than 1% increase in sales.  

Commercial Director at Reapp, James Lamplugh, reports that “our latest in-depth analysis shows flavour, taste, and experience unequivocally remain the top factors in understanding what drives consumer trends. 

“Brands have demonstrated real skill in adapting to legislation to deliver growth. Retailers too have been savvy with their promotion to retain customer loyalty. 

“Not only this, with inflation and the cost-of-living crisis being huge factors in our lives, consumers found themselves staying at home more, driving the ‘Big Night In’ trend where we see shoppers treating themselves to little luxuries such as chocolate and confectionery.” 

How can we help?

Whilst HFSS regulations are reshaping the classic supermarket layout, here at Harrison our product development team design innovative display solutions and store fixtures designed to promote healthier product options as well as supporting the promotion of non-HFSS-compliant products and brands.  

So, are you a retailer looking to increase impulse sales of HFSS-compliant products? Or a non-HFSS-compliant brand struggling to get noticed in-aisle?

Then get in touch with our team today, or email sales@harrisonretail.com, to explore how we can support with your store promotions and merchandising systems. 

As part of our commitment to continually improve our business practices and corporate social responsibility management, we are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded the Gold EcoVadis Sustainability Rating.

EcoVadis is a globally recognised sustainability ratings provider, focusing on providing businesses with the tools needed to improve their sustainability practises and effectively manage corporate social responsibility.  

Essential for smart and responsible business, sustainability can be broken down into four key themes which businesses are then assessed on:  

• Environment  
• Ethics  
• Labour & Human Rights  
• Sustainable Procurement 

After achieving the Bronze rating in 2021 from EcoVadis, we followed the guidance detailed in our report and set out to significantly improve our policies and business practices in each of these four areas in order to achieve a higher rating for 2022. One of our key focuses was to become a carbon measured operation, which we achieved earlier this year by working with CarbonQuota.

This year’s report has identified that we are now ranked in the top 3% of companies rated by EcoVadis in our industry. But we won’t stop there. 

We understand the effect that our business can have on the world around us and we care about working hard to minimise that impact as much as possible. Our new Gold Rating is an excellent acknowledgement that the work we are doing to improve is having an impact and serves as encouragement for us to take it even further. 

We will be using this latest EcoVadis report to continue building on our corporate social responsibility policies and helping to champion a more sustainable future for the industry. 

For more information on the results of our latest assessment, please contact our team via sustainability@harrisonretail.com, alternatively you can view our latest certificate online. 

We are thrilled to announce that we are now a certified carbon measured operation. We are working with CarbonQuota to measure, reduce, and certify our carbon emissions in alignment with the Our Green Promise commitment we made to minimise our impact on the planet.

Current international targets require that, by 2030, all organisations must reduce their carbon footprint within their own business by 95%, and within their supply chain by 50%. We’re committed to achieving this target whilst acknowledging the complexity of such an undertaking. 

Being one of the country’s leading suppliers of retail components and POS products, we understand how much plastic is used to create shelf management, price communication, and merchandising solutions in-store. That’s why we launched Our Green Promise, to pledge our commitment to helping minimise the environmental impact of such solutions, and why we have appointed CarbonQuota to drive this commitment even further by independently calculating the footprint of our operations. 

CarbonQuota have been working with us this year to extensively identify and measure the carbon footprint of our direct operations. Following the collation of this data, we now have a detailed report which has determined our baseline, covering our full Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions, against which we can now build measurable carbon reduction goals and actively work to reduce our 2021 carbon hotspots. We have also started to assess our scope 3 emissions and plan to have this measurement fully completed within the coming years.

Since working with CarbonQuota, we have already started to explore more ways to reduce our carbon footprint by relocating our head office to a more central location which has reduced commuting distances and time for our colleagues by 35%. This is also encouraging more lift-sharing, cycle-to-work opportunities, and making the switch to electric company vehicles. 

We are also continually developing our sustainable product material offerings to support these goals. Our 100% recyclable EcoPlastic range of POS components, which use a modified plastic polymer that breaks down into completely natural compounds, continues to expand. And our ground-breaking Ecovision range is also in development with some exciting announcements to come. 

We’re proud of our achievements and product innovations to date, so to now have the initial ‘certification of operational carbon footprint assessment’ from CarbonQuota means it is time for us to work even harder to reduce our carbon emissions and encourage a more sustainable future for the industry.

For more information on the results of our operational carbon footprint assessment, please contact sustainability@harrisonretail.com, alternatively you can view our certificate online.

With ever-growing success, here at Harrison we recognise the significance of investing in manufacturing, machinery and automation.

Rapid business growth has allowed us to push forward with ambitious business goals, so we are excited to announce the incorporation of leading acrylic fabrication company United Manufacturing into the Harrison group.

As a major player in the acrylic fabrication market, United Manufacturing (previously known as United Plastics Ltd) have undergone an impressive rebrand project in order to pair extensive industry experience with Harrison’s innovative forward-thinking to form an exciting and progressive partnership.

Dedicated to providing creative solutions to any brief, large or small, for any industry, United Manufacturing use state-of-the-art design technology and in-house fabrication facilities to produce solutions of the highest standards with market-best lead times.

Our investment in a skilled partner workforce to support with manufacturing projects means the Harrison Group can more effectively offer tailored solutions for clients, drawing on United Manufacturing’s expert acrylic fabrication services:

Laser Cutting

For fine details, intricate designs and precision finishes, advanced laser cutters produce clean, high-gloss finishes for all acrylic applications.

Thermoforming & Bending

With no tooling required, line bending and material thermoforming techniques are highly effective options for achieving tight radius bends with acrylic sheets.

CNC Machining

Computer Numerical Control (CNC) ensures the highest standard of finish by using electro-mechanical devices to guide fabrication tools such as grinders and routers.

Polishing

Using diamond polishing and flame polishing techniques, acrylic solutions will achieve the smoothest, high-shine edges for maximum impact applications.

By pushing forward with our manufacturing and automation investments, our clients can now maximise on bespoke acrylic fabrication services as well as the renowned Harrison experience as we continue to put clients at the heart of everything we do.

For more information on the services offered by United Manufacturing as part of the Harrison Group, head to the brand-new website today or get in touch with the team via info@unitedmanufacturing.co.uk 

As a nation renowned for our tea and coffee drinking, Britain gets through over 2.5 billion single-use cups every year, and this is only increasing, yet it is estimated that only 0.25% of paper cups are actually recycled. 

It’s clear that producers and retailers need to do more to tackle this growing problem.

There are a number of voluntary takeback initiatives in place which have seen positive results; however, the Government acknowledges that voluntary initiatives ‘will only go so far’ and want to see producers take ‘greater responsibility for these difficult to recycle packaging products.’ 

In order to tackle the disposable cups problem, the Government has set out objectives as part of the Extended Producer Responsibility strategy which includes: 

• Increasing the use of reusable cups 
• Reducing the use of difficult-to-recycle single-use cups 
• Increasing the recycling of single-use cups 

With initial plans to increase the recycling of single-use cups, the Government is preparing for the possibility of implementing a mandatory takeback for all sellers of filled disposable paper cups for both hot and cold drinks, irrespective of brand or place of purchase.

What do businesses need to do?

Businesses should focus on encouraging the use of reusable cups in stores, by selling these on site and introducing reward schemes for those customers who use them.  

With the proposed introduction of a mandatory takeback obligation however, businesses will be required to provide accessible in-store recycling points for customers’ paper cups as well as installing recycling stations located outside of stores. 

Sellers of filled paper cups will also then be responsible for arranging separate collection and recycling of any cups left at their recycling points. 

Recycling stations are an effective way to not only increase the recyclability of your business’ waste, but to also be an influence for change in our throw-away culture. 

It is clear that brands have a responsibility to lead the way in tackling the food and beverage waste issues and this is a small step in the right direction. 

How We Can Support Businesses 

Whether for national coffee chains and supermarkets or independent cafes, we can design and produce paper cup recycling solutions with the client’s purpose in mind. 

Using the latest CAD design technology with our experience and understanding of the pace of retail, our Product Development Team can rapidly produce bespoke paper cup recycling stations tailored specifically for the client’s needs

From concept to store roll-out, our expert teams will work with you every step of the way to ensure that your business is ahead of the curve to increase sustainability efforts and prepare for the proposed takeback legislation. 

How We’ve Already Supported Morrisons 

In order to further their sustainability efforts, we were approached by the supermarket giant, Morrisons, to create an innovative and eco-friendly solution for easy in-store paper cup recycling. 

Our in-house Technical Team were able to provide the perfect design to prevent paper cups from ending up in general waste. By installing the recycling station, the cups can instead be repurposed into greeting cards. For every 15 recycled cups, two new greeting cards can be produced for the retailer to sell on. 

The completed product was made from powder-coated steel and our Creative Team worked with the client to design bespoke branded artwork. A nationwide roll out is now planned to ship Recycling Cup Stations to over 450 Morrisons stores. 

For more information on how we can support your business with paper cup recycling stations or to discuss your brief in more detail, please get in touch with our dedicated team of experts today. The time to act is now. 

It is no secret that the way consumers shop is rapidly shifting. With the rise of internet shopping and continuing pandemic impacts, retailers now need to do more than ever to earn customer footfall and make physical shopping experiences worthwhile.

There are many ways to improve the in-store experience and increase shopper engagement; a simple yet effective method is the introduction of standard and bespoke acrylic displays throughout stores.

Popularly used for displaying information, campaign and promotional material, acrylic displays provide a multitude of format options and are effective in ensuring brand recognition and getting displays noticed.

1. Encourage Brand Recognition and Trust

Not only is it essential to get shoppers into stores, retailers must then maximise on this opportunity to ensure brand recognition, customer loyalty and encourage return visits. Manufacturing bespoke acrylic displays can be pivotal in providing shoppers with the easy, helpful and immersive retail experience they cannot get from online shopping. 

Strategically placed standard acrylic displays, such as Pallet Sign Holders, will not only maintain shopper engagement with the brand throughout their visit by highlighting promotions and campaigns but also encourage new purchases, assuring the retailer’s position as a trusted influencing brand.

2. Simple Display Installation for Store Efficiency

One of the biggest benefits to installing bespoke acrylic displays in stores is that they can be designed and manufactured specifically for certain spaces and product areas throughout the store.

Custom acrylic displays therefore take installation into account during the design process to ensure that fitting the retail solution will be as simple, seamless and efficient as possible, maximising the use of store staff time.  

Many standard acrylic retail displays can simply be placed on countertops, hung in store windows or fixed to walls. Acrylics can also be incorporated into existing retail fixtures when exploring more bespoke manufacturing solutions. 

3. Technical Features of Acrylic

Used as a safer, more durable and therefore more sustainable option to glass, acrylic is a popular choice due to its shatterproof, weather-resistant and scratchproof qualities. 

Standard and bespoke acrylic displays are suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, allowing retailers to maximise brand recognition and promotional opportunities even before shoppers enter the store as well as throughout their visit.

Acrylic is also a very malleable material and can be easily extruded to form any shape or size needed to create the ideal retail display. Custom acrylic displays can be crafted to incorporate additional components such as magnets which allow retailers to regularly update promotional material in the acrylic display without impacting its durability or longevity. 

Retailers have also favoured acrylic fixtures in ensuring staff and shopper safety following the recent pandemic.

How We Can Support Retailers

Whether for a major supermarket chain or a local convenience store, we design with the purpose in mind and can create a bespoke acrylic display solution for any retail environment. 

Using the latest CAD design technology with our experience and understanding of the pace of retail, our Product Development Team can rapidly produce entirely bespoke concepts and designs to suit your brief and any tight deadlines you may have.  

With our ability to develop and fabricate a multitude of bespoke retail and merchandising solutions for a range of industries including groceries, DIY and home furnishings, our technical retail experts will utilise their in-depth knowledge of acrylic fabrication to produce the highest standard retail solution for you with leading turnaround times. 

How We’ve Already Supported Dreams

Our expert teams worked with bed specialist, Dreams, who required two different bed display stands that would be subtle and compact to suit their busy bedroom furniture showrooms.  

One of the bespoke acrylic stands we created was designed to fit beneath display mattresses throughout their stores for a sleek and minimal solution to display product information effectively. 

Our Product Development Team also produced an additional free-standing acrylic sign for various uses. Both custom acrylic solutions successfully fulfilled the client’s brief to be easy to install, move and regularly update with promotional signage.

With over 9000 of our acrylic stands produced, we rolled these our to all 200 Dreams stores across the UK.

For more information on our bespoke retail services or to speak to one of our experts about your brief, please get in touch with us.

You might have noticed when you arrived on our site today that our online home looks a little different than before. Not only have we built a brand-new website, we also decided to update our branding to more accurately reflect our company values.  

As a company, we always strive to do more but it felt as though our image no longer lived up to our purpose.  

We believe that the future of retail feels good and that it is centred on protecting the planet and revolutionising the way we shop. We determined that our new identity needed to reflect this and be built upon a complete digital transformation to support our rapidly growing business. 

To more accurately support our customers and their specific needs, we have divided our existing offering into Harrison Products and Harrison Retail. We are still the same single company with a single purpose; however, this offering simply allows us to tailor our products and services more suitably for our clients.

We have filled our website with a whole host of new features that will maximise your online experience with us. You will be able to shop our updated collection of stocked products with a more intuitive checkout experience and have the ability to quickly checkout as a guest or log into your account for a more personalised experience, as well as request product samples and bespoke sizes directly from the relevant product pages. 

Why not get to know us more by visiting our company page for an insight into who we are as a company? Here you can discover the array of bespoke services we offer to support our clients in protecting the planet whilst revolutionising the way we shop. 

You may already know from the Our Green Promise campaign that we are dedicated to minimising the impact we have on the world around us. We have created an interactive experience that allows you to follow our sustainability journey; from the way we act as a business to the products we sell and the organisations we support. 

Find out how we’ve helped other businesses on their journey to a more sustainable future for retail by exploring the case studies feature in our brand-new Discover Hub, where you can also make the most of latest Harrison news, insights on industry trends and consumer behaviour and more. 

Still looking for more? Our comprehensive Support Hub is packed full of helpful information on everything you need to know about, from frequently asked questions to details on our credentials as well as our new feature that allows you to raise a support ticket when needed. 

For more information on our recent rebrand and new website, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. 

It’s no secret that shops and supermarkets are being pushed to make refillable products more widely available.

According to Which?, 75% of consumers would consider buying refillable products but only 36% say they have actually seen them made available.

As industry leaders, we recognise the impact of the rising waste packaging problem so we work alongside small and major retailers on a shared mission to significantly reduce food waste and single use packaging from the food supply chain by offering sustainable retail innovations.

Designed and manufactured to the highest specifications using state-of-the-art technologies, we tailor our sustainable retail products to create the perfect solution to any brief.

REFILLED Products

BPA free and safe for food storage, REFILLED Gravity Dispensers house free-flowing products for customers to use which means that there is no packaging waste involved. Available in 6L, 10L and 13L capacities, these dispensers are perfect for any-sized store looking to improve its sustainability initiatives.

Easy to use, clean and install, our REFILLED Gravity Dispensers can be mounted to existing shelves or make use of our premade and bespoke designed shelving units. Also suitable for wall mounting, the dispensers can be fixed to any wall space or used in conjunction with our Bar Mount System to turn existing store shelving into a refill station.

We also offer a Catch Tray System which is designed to collect any overflow or spilled products, helping to eliminate in-store food wastage.

Ideal for hard-to-flow products, REFILLED Scoop Bins are also available for store refill stations. By naturally rotating stock levels as well as eliminating food packaging waste, these waste-conscious bins are available in 13L and 22L.

Store Fixturing

We offer store fixturing for your Gravity Dispensers and Scoop Bins, with a wide range of pre-made shelving stands or by liaising with our team of experts we can design a tailor made solution specifically for your brief.

Crafted from high-quality durable wood and metal, we will work alongside you every step of the way to create a fixture that is designed specifically with your store and customers in mind.

Contact our team today to find the perfect zero waste solution for your needs or email us via sales@harrisonproducts.net or check out our REFILLED product brochure or to download here for more details.

As leaders in our field, we understand that plastic is an essential and often unavoidable material throughout the industry. That’s why we want to do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t end up in the wrong place.

We are making it our priority to create products that can either compost naturally or be recycled with the intention that all of these components are disposed of in the correct recycling streams so that they can be repurposed for something else.

It’s a worrying fact that a large amount of the world’s used plastic ends up in oceans despite being recyclable, polluting and damaging marine eco-systems across the globe. So here at Harrison, we are making waves and taking matters into our own hands by actively contributing to the largest clean-up in history.

Every month we support The Ocean Clean-Up, a non-profit organisation, and its mission to sustainably catch and remove plastic from the world’s oceans using passive clean-up technology that moves with the currents before recycling and repurposing these materials into verified ocean plastic.

The organisation has deployed a fleet of clean-up systems and has created a scalable, 100% solar-powered technology that prevents river plastic from getting into oceans, addressing and preventing the key moment misplaced waste becomes a global marine pollutant.

The project’s ultimate goal is to reduce floating ocean plastic by 90% by 2040 and we are thrilled to be a part of it. It has never been so important to acknowledge our environmental impact and do everything we can to make waves by making a change.

Head over to Our Green Promise to find out what else we’re doing to help tackle the climate crisis and actively reduce our impact on the environment.

In an effort to minimise and offset our environmental impact as much as possible, we pledge that all of our standard parcels packaging will be 100% plastic free by 2022!

In 2019, we announced the launch of Our Green Promise campaign, championing three main target areas: what we do, what we sell and what we give back. With the unveiling of our Plastic-Free Packaging project, we are kick starting Phase II of Our Green Promise.

So, what do we do?

Here at Harrison, we are now packing all orders in brand new packaging made from 100% recycled cardboard which is 100% recyclable!

By also eliminating tape and plastic document wallets from our standard packages, we are already 75% plastic free and well on the way to achieving our goal of phasing out plastic packaging completely.

Whilst many businesses like ours are also working towards environmentally-friendly packaging, it is still one of the leading causes of plastic pollution, impacting even the deepest oceans. Did you know that, globally, humans manufacture:

just under 300 million tonnes of plastic a year – that is equivalent to the weight of the entire adult population of the planet’.

We understand that, because of this, consumer expectations around packaging are evolving rapidly which is why we are changing the way we do things too.

We are determined to do everything we can to support the environment, so by introducing this circular packaging model into our strategy we are already carving the way towards a more sustainable future to help shape a world without waste.

Head over to the Our Green Promise page for updates on the next instalment of Our Green Promise: Phase II and for information on our other sustainable initiatives.

We are proud to announce that we have partnered with One Tree Planted in an effort to support global reforestation and expand Our Green Promise campaign.

One Tree Planted is a non-profit organisation based in Vermont that focuses on global reforestation. Trees help to clean the air we breathe, filter the water we drink and provide jobs to over 1.6 billion people across the world. Which is why we think that the work One Tree Planted do is so important.

We are passionate about our planet and understand the impact that our business has on the environment around us so we work hard to offset this as much as possible. But that just isn’t enough. We want to do more because it has never been so important to invest in protecting the future of our planet.

So we have extended the reach of Our Green Promise to help restore and protect endangered areas in Peru in which the Amazon Rainforest has been identified as high risk zones for deforestation and degradation. This destruction is due to continued unsustainable agricultural practices in the region.

By planting shade-grown cocoa, native tree species and productive timber species, we are establishing sustainable agroforestry systems that will help to protect the Peruvian Amazon’s biodiversity and restore damaged land.

Not only does our tree planting help to restore these vital Amazonian regions and conserve animal habitats, it also provides sustainable livelihoods to local people through farming cooperatives that offer technical support and training.

So by partnering up with One Tree Planted, we have pledged to plant 100 trees every single month!