Madeley blasts Tesco plan to warn about shopping for an excessive amount of fatty meals

Richard Madeley has this morning blasted Tesco‘s ‘infuriating’ plan to use Clubcard data to warn shoppers off buying too much fatty food. 

The Good Morning Britain co-host, 68, said it was another example of the ‘nanny state’ and it was an ‘insult to our intelligence’.

He says he doesn’t need to be told he has bought six ready meals for the week ahead because he knows what he has done as he is ‘clever’. 

‘Can you imagine the annoying factor?’ he said. ‘Ping, “Richard you have bought too many packets of crisps”… Yeah I know, I’m having a party for the kids. 

‘Ping. “Richard you have bought far too much booze today”… argh. It’s infuriating.’ 

And he went as far to say that Andy Warhol would never have created his 1962 Campbell’s soup masterpieces if the scheme had been in place at the time.

‘Because he bought that and had that for his lunch every day for twenty years,’ Madeley said. 

Broadcaster and journalist Ateh Jewel told the ITV show this morning that she had given herself type 2 diabetes having had ‘disordered eating’ where food was ‘her friend’.

But she said the mooted scheme was ‘Big Brother meets my mother’ and raised concerns it could be triggering for those with eating disorders. 

‘I think it’s absolutely outrageous,’ she said. 

Ms Jewel recently lost four stone by being ‘joyful and dancing and moving and connection’, not from a ‘ping, ping put the Ben and Jerry’s back’.  

She continued: ‘I think this is nanny state and I find it very disturbing.’  

But consumer expert Harry Wallop said Tesco Clubcard sits on the data of 20 million people and shoppers have more interaction with their supermarket than their GP.

‘So why not use that data in a positive way, because I tell you, the supermarkets are selling that data to the food companies so they can make more money,’ he said. 

‘Say in a classic week you put in lots of ready meals which are very high in fat. If you got a message from your supermarket loyalty card saying “have you thought about swapping for this healthier lasagne?”, and perhaps they gave you a discount funded by the supplier, because that’s how it works, well would anyone have an objection?

‘It’s not saying “look, fatso Richard you need to cut back on the lasagne”.’ 

Tesco’s chief executive Ken Murphy said yesterday he expected to use artificial intelligence to help customers make healthier choices by alerting them when they go over their daily recommended allowance.

CEO Ken Murphy said: ‘I can see it nudging you, saying: “look, I’ve noticed over time that in your shopping basket your sodium salt content is 250pc of your daily recommended allowance. I would recommend you substitute this, this and this for lower sodium products to improve your heart health”.’

He told The Telegraph it was ‘very simple stuff’ which could ‘really improve people’s daily lives’.

The suggestion likely comes as a positive for health campaigners who have warned that unhealthy eating is driving a costly obesity crisis.

However, the idea that Tesco would seek to influence customer’s personal choices has sparked backlash from privacy campaigners.

Jake Hurfurt, Big Brother Watch’s head of research and investigations said Mr Murphy’s comments should ‘serve as evidence that loyalty card schemes are based on mass-scale surveillance of customers’.

He said Tesco had ‘no right to make judgements’ about what is in a customer’s basket, The Telegraph reported.

Tesco has said it is not currently looking to rollout the nudge policy.

More than 20million people are currently signed up to the Clubcard scheme which launched in 1995 and gives customers access to better deals.

It comes after a recent survey by UK National Diet found 11 to 18-year-olds were typically getting 66 per cent of their calories from ultraprocessed foods.