Tesco could use AI to 'nudge' customers towards healthier shopping basket

ITV News' Callum Fairhurst explains how Tesco could use AI to persuade shoppers to be healthier.

Tesco could use shoppers’ Clubcard data to warn them when their baskets are becoming unhealthy, the grocer’s chief executive has said.

Ken Murphy said artificial intelligence could be used to monitor how customers were shopping to help persuade them towards healthier choices.

He said: “I can see it nudging you over time, saying: ‘I’ve noticed over time in your shopping basket that your sodium salt content is 250% of your daily recommended allowance. I would recommend you substitute this, this and this.’”

Using AI to analyse shoppers' baskets may also help bring their shopping bill down, reduce waste and improve the "power" of the Clubcard, Mr Murphy added.

He suggested the tech could be used to tell people they should wait a week to stock up on products if Tesco had an offer coming up that could make their shop cheaper.

Tesco said it does not sell or share customer data and takes its responsibilities in relation to it "extremely seriously". It stressed it was not currently looking at rolling out a “nudge” policy.

Tesco is Britain’s largest supermarket, and more than 22 million households are currently signed up to its Clubcard scheme, which launched in 1995 and gives customers access to lower prices.

Henry Dimbleby, who led the government’s existing national food strategy, told the BBC’s Today programme it was a good idea - but might not be financially viable.

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"We talked to the CEO of a supermarket who’d tried to do a similar thing in five stores and they had succeeded in improving the baskets of food that their customers were buying. But all five stores lost profitability, so they couldn’t roll it out," he said.

Dimbleby said former chancellor and health secretary Sajid Javid was about to attempt to launch a scheme whereby incentives were put in place to encourage shoppers to increase the healthiness of baskets over time.

Professor Susan Michie, director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London, also told the Today programme: "It’s really important that people be told what technology is being used in what way and for what purposes. So transparency’s really important."

She highlighted that some customers may have different goals - such as saving money, or being sustainable.

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