Abu Dhabi Mandates Supermarket Shelf Overhaul for High-Fat Foods by 2027

Abu Dhabi’s supermarkets and online grocery platforms have until January 1, 2027, to reconfigure how they display food products high in fat, salt and sugar, under a mandatory placement regulation that takes effect across the emirate on that date. The policy applies to physical stores exceeding 4,000 square feet and to digital shopping platforms operating in Abu Dhabi.

The framework emerged from collaboration between Healthy Living, the Abu Dhabi Registration Authority and multiple government agencies working within the emirate’s public health structure. Classification of affected products relies on the Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre’s SEHHI system, which identifies which items must be repositioned within retail environments. The underlying operational logic is straightforward: shelf location and digital visibility are treated as levers for influencing purchasing behavior, without removing consumer access to any product.

Additional reference context is available at https://cairoscene.com/News/Abu-Dhabi-s-New-Policy-Moves-Junk-Food-From-Prime-Store-Spots.

In physical stores, supermarkets must clear unhealthy products from high-traffic zones, specifically store entrances, end-of-aisle promotional displays and checkout counter areas. These locations represent the most commercially valuable real estate in any retail floor plan, and their redesignation marks a deliberate restructuring of how merchandise is organized. Online platforms face parallel requirements, removing classified products from homepage features, prominent search results, promotional pop-ups and checkout page positioning. The digital specifications recognize that e-commerce interfaces carry their own visibility hierarchies, ones that closely mirror the logic of physical store layouts.

What changes, and what does not: affected products remain purchasable through standard distribution channels. Items classified under the SEHHI system will continue to occupy their regular aisle positions, so consumers seeking them can still locate and buy them. The regulation distinguishes between availability and promotion, preserving the former while restructuring the latter entirely.

Carrefour, one of the region’s major retail operators, has already aligned its operations with the new placement standards ahead of the mandatory deadline. The retailer’s early compliance signals that the operational adjustments required are feasible within existing store management systems and platform architectures, which will matter to other operators still planning their transitions.

The two-year window between announcement and mandatory compliance gives retailers time to reconfigure store layouts, reprogram online platforms and train staff on the new requirements. For supermarkets running multiple locations across Abu Dhabi, the transition demands systematic changes to planogram standards and visual merchandising protocols. Online platforms, meanwhile, must modify recommendation algorithms, homepage curation systems and promotional logic to meet the visibility restrictions.

According to the authorities overseeing the policy, the redesigned placement strategy is intended to shift consumer purchasing patterns by making healthier options more visible at decision points. Removing unhealthy items from checkout counters, entrances and other high-impulse zones aims to reduce unplanned purchases while preserving the option for deliberate buying. No restrictions apply to what retailers can stock or what consumers can purchase; the regulation targets the merchandising infrastructure that shapes retail choice architecture.

The policy is, at its core, an operational intervention into retail design rather than a demand-side restriction. Further details on the framework and implementation timeline are documented at cairoscene.com/News/Abu-Dhabi-s-New-Policy-Moves-Junk-Food-From-Prime-Store-Spots.

Whether the 2027 deadline holds without slippage, and how consistently compliance is enforced across the emirate’s many retail formats, will determine how much the framework actually reshapes what ends up in shoppers’ baskets.