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The UK Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 and Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 require cigarettes (factory-made and rolling tobacco) to be sold in standardised packs with a drab brown colour and pictorial health warnings covering at least 65% of the principal display areas.1 Tobacco companies and retailers were given from 20 May 2016 to 20 May 2017 to comply with the legislation.
Research from Australia, the first country to introduce standardised packaging, has explored several factors that may mitigate the impact of this measure, including illicit tobacco use,2 pricing3 and product development.4 5 No studies, however, have measured compliance among retailers. Given the value of such research in gauging the effectiveness of retailer-related tobacco policy,6 we examined independent and convenience (small) retailer compliance with standardised packaging legislation in the UK. Small retailers are an important group for investigation as reportedly half of their consumers purchase tobacco and over two-thirds consider tobacco necessary to maintain footfall.7
Methods
We analysed electronic point of sale (EPoS) data from small retailers for 10 weeks after standardised packaging was fully implemented (ie, after the 1-year transition period had ended and only products compliant with the legislation could be legally sold). Data were supplied by The Retail Data Partnership, which supplies EPoS systems to small retailers and captures approximately 14% of all available convenience EPoS data in the UK (including symbol group-affiliated and independent stores).8 Data were collected for the first week after standardised packaging was fully implemented (22 May 2017), and biweekly thereafter (table 1). For each week, data were available for an average of 2414 small retailers (SD=18.55). All tobacco products were monitored through Universal Product Codes (UPCs). The data supplier classified UPCs as branded or standardised using the wholesaler and manufacturer databases, which populate product details on the EPoS systems. Standardised UPCs were defined as products conforming to the regulations (ie, standardised packaging and containing ≥20 cigarettes or ≥30 g rolling tobacco), and branded UPCs were defined as products that did not conform to the regulations (ie, fully branded packaging and/or containing <20 cigarettes or <30 g rolling tobacco).1 Data were obtained for three measures of compliance: (1) the total number of retailers selling fully branded UPCs only, standardised UPCs only or both; (2) the total range of fully branded or standardised UPCs sold (ie, the number of different products); and (3) the total volume of UPC sales (overall, fully branded, standardised) (ie, the total number of packs sold). Totals were adjusted to exclude UPCs that could not be determined as branded or standardised by the data agency.
Range of different UPCs sold, total UPC sales volume and proportion of retailer sales in 10 weeks after mandatory compliance
Results
The first week after standardised packaging was fully implemented, three-quarters of small retailers sold both branded and standardised UPCs, three-quarters of the total range of UPCs sold were branded, and branded UPCs constituted 2.59% of total sales volume (table 1). There was a reduction in the range and volume of branded products sold in weeks 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, and a corresponding increase in sales of standardised products and the proportion of retailers selling them. Nevertheless, in week 10, over half of retailers (53.26%) still sold both branded and standardised UPCs and almost half of the range of UPCs sold were branded (40.80%), although these branded UPCs only constituted a very small proportion of total sales volume (0.50%).
Discussion
The results show mixed evidence of compliance following the full implementation of standardised packaging. On one hand, the total volume of sales for standardised products was high, which suggests that the legislation was successful in removing most branded packaging from small retailers. On the other hand, half of small retailers were still selling some branded products up to 10 weeks after standardised packaging was mandatory, despite having 12 months to sell off old stock and transition to compliant products, and of the possibility of a fine or imprisonment for contravening the legislation.1 Given extensive media and trade press publicity,9 and the fact that approximately three-quarters of smokers in a UK survey in March 2017 indicated that they were aware of the standardised packaging legislation,10 it seems unlikely that small retailers were unaware of the compliance timetable. For countries implementing standardised packaging, the findings suggest that retailer compliance merits consideration and attempts should be made to minimise non-compliance. As the EPoS data reported only represent a cross-section of small retailers, further investigation into other retailers (eg, supermarkets) is required to further understand compliance across the UK tobacco market.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank The Retail Data Partnership (TRDP) for supplying and offering technical support on the EPoS data.
Footnotes
Contributors MS, DE and A-MM directed the study design, data acquisition and obtained funding. NC was responsible for data management and analysis, and all authors contributed to interpretation of the results. All authors were involved in manuscript preparation and read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding This work was supported by a grant from Cancer Research UK (grant number: C24178/A22568).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.