If you’ve been to a supermarket in Abu Dhabi recently and noticed the checkout counter looks different, you’re not imagining it. The chocolate bars, chewing gum, sugary drinks and impulse snacks that used to line the path to the cashier are being quietly removed — and replaced with something better.
This is the Abu Dhabi Healthy Living Programme in action. Rather than restricting what people can buy, the initiative is changing where products are placed — a subtle but effective approach to nudging shoppers toward healthier choices without taking anything off the shelves.
What Is Changing in Abu Dhabi Supermarkets?
Supermarkets across Abu Dhabi are now required to clear unhealthy food and beverage products from what the programme calls “high-traffic” or “temptation zones” — the parts of a store where shoppers are most likely to throw something extra into the basket without really planning to.
The affected areas are:
- Store entrances
- Ends of supermarket aisles
- Checkout counters
These spots have always been prime real estate for chocolates, sweets, crisps, soft drinks and promotional snack bundles because more people pass through them than anywhere else in the store. That’s exactly why they’re being targeted — and why what replaces them matters.
Why Are Checkout Counters Called ‘Temptation Zones’?
Anyone who has ever arrived at a checkout counter with a sensible shopping basket and left with a chocolate bar they didn’t plan to buy already understands the logic here. Checkout lines and aisle ends are where unplanned purchases happen — not because shoppers lose control, but because the products are placed there deliberately to catch attention at moments when decision-making is at its most automatic.
The Healthy Living Programme is working with that insight rather than against it. The goal isn’t to lecture shoppers or restrict their choices — it’s to make the easier, more visible option a healthier one.
Residents Welcome the New Shopping Experience
The reception among shoppers has been genuinely positive.
Rawdha Mohammed, an Omani resident, said the change would help families build better habits over time. She pointed out that checkout counters are particularly difficult territory when children are involved — young kids waiting in line tend to spot the sweets immediately and ask for them. Replacing those products with healthier options removes a common pressure point for parents.
Omaima Saleh, a Jordanian resident, echoed that view. She described how promotional displays at store entrances used to pull her attention toward things she hadn’t intended to buy and didn’t really need. Seeing healthier products displayed prominently instead, she said, makes it easier to stay focused on what she actually came in for.
For Emirati resident Mansour Alhashmi, the financial angle is just as compelling as the health one. Running a household of more than nine people, he said reducing impulse purchases at the checkout translates directly into lower grocery bills — and a healthier food basket at the same time.
Nutri-Mark Labels Are Helping Shoppers Make Better Choices
The changes to product placement are running alongside a growing rollout of Nutri-Mark — Abu Dhabi’s front-of-pack nutrition labelling system that grades packaged food products from A to E, with A being the most nutritious and E the least.
The grading is designed to be immediately readable. You don’t need to understand nutritional tables or calculate anything — you look at the letter and you know where the product sits on the health spectrum.
Egyptian resident Jamal Abdulaziz said the labels had already changed some of his regular purchasing habits. After paying attention to the grades, he started replacing some of his usual picks — chocolate, crisps, sugary juices — with better alternatives. He still enjoys those foods occasionally, but the labels made him more conscious about how often he was reaching for them.
TAMM App Supports Healthier Shopping Decisions
Not every product carries a Nutri-Mark label yet, but that information gap has been partially filled by the TAMM app, which allows shoppers to look up nutritional classifications for products that haven’t received front-of-pack grading.
Emirati resident Maha Ahmed said the app had become a useful reference point during shopping trips, helping her navigate products that don’t yet display a Nutri-Mark grade. She also expressed hope that similar classification tools would eventually extend to childcare products, skincare items and personal care goods — a logical next step as the healthy living framework matures.
The combination of physical labels in-store and digital tools through the app gives shoppers two complementary ways to make more informed choices.
Carrefour Among the First Stores Showing the Changes
The changes are already visible at Carrefour locations across Abu Dhabi, where the transformation of checkout counter displays is immediately noticeable. The rows of chocolates, chewing gum and sugary snacks that once defined the area around the cashier have gone.
Reports on social media suggest Carrefour is rolling out the new display standards across additional branches in coordination with the relevant authorities. Other supermarket chains are expected to follow as the Healthy Living Programme expands its reach across the emirate.
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Part of Abu Dhabi’s Wider Healthy Living Strategy
The supermarket initiative is one piece of a considerably broader public health push. Abu Dhabi has been working across multiple fronts to improve the nutritional environment its residents live in — from restrictions on fast-food advertising to stronger nutritional standards in school meals to the ongoing Nutri-Mark rollout.
The consistent theme across all of these measures is that they work with consumer behaviour rather than against it. Nobody is being told what they can or can’t eat. The strategy is built around making healthy options easier to find, easier to understand and easier to choose — and letting behaviour shift naturally from there.
How the Initiative Could Change Shopping Habits
The evidence on product placement and purchasing behaviour is well established. Where a product sits in a store has a measurable effect on how often it’s bought — which is why supermarkets have spent decades fine-tuning exactly where things go. Abu Dhabi’s initiative is using that same logic in reverse.
For families, the downstream effects could be meaningful over time — fewer checkout requests from children, healthier food arriving home, and modest but real savings on impulsive spending that adds up across dozens of weekly shops. As more supermarkets bring their displays into line with the programme, the healthier option is going to become the visible one — which, according to everything we know about how people make decisions, is half the battle.