If you knew your chicken was filled with E-numbers, or that your salmon was being fed genetically modified food, would it change how you shop?
How about apples laden with a cocktail of pesticides and food labelled 'Made In Britain' but actually made with imported meat? These are all secrets the UK supermarket industry uses to fool us into buying what we think are ‘healthy’, ‘natural’ foods, when the truth is far from it.
This blog isn't about scaremongering; it's about pulling back the curtain and empowering you with the knowledge to make informed choices about what you feed yourself and your family. We've picked out 10 unhinged secrets of the UK supermarket industry, what to look for, and how to avoid them.
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Your chicken isn’t just chicken
Flip over a packet of pre-prepared chicken and you’ll see a list of ingredients you probably weren’t expecting. To improve the shelf life, colour and taste, manufacturers inject the meat with everything from stabilisers and soybean oil, to glucose syrup and E numbers, which studies have linked to inflammation and food intolerances, and some which can disrupt the balance of gut bacteria over time.
When it comes to whole chicken, the price can range from under £5 to £20, but it’s not down to what happens in the processing - it’s about how the chicken lived. Budget price chicken comes with severe welfare compromises like crowded and stressful indoor environments, and selective breeding, which forces the birds to grow so unnaturally fast that many end up with leg weakness or heart failure, before they reach their full weight.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Read the label on any packaged chicken products to check you’re happy with what’s in there. When it comes to buying a whole chicken, try to opt for better quality when you can. Organic, free-range chicken fed a natural diet may be more expensive, but it comes with more omega 3s, less inflammatory fats, higher concentrations of vitamins.
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‘Made in Britain’ products can still use imported meat…
Even products with a Union Jack stamp and ‘Made in Britain’ labelling can contain imported meat, as long as the product was processed in the UK. The most common foods for this tend to be deli counter meats, pies, sausages and ready meals. This matters, because not all countries have the same laws for animal welfare or feed.
What to look for & how to avoid it: By UK law, raw or frozen meat must display specific origin metrics on the back label like country of birth, rearing, slaughter and processing. To be sure of where your meat comes from, look for the ‘Origin UK’ wording, or seek out your local farm shop or butchers where you can speak to the people who know exactly where the meat is reared.
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‘Natural flavours’ are often meaningless buzzwords
Sweets, smoothies and yoghurts often come with ‘natural flavours’ that aren’t what you imagine. Many people assume ‘natural strawberry flavour’ means crushed-up strawberries. In reality, a flavour chemist takes a natural source, extracts its raw chemical aroma molecules, and pieces them back together in a laboratory setting. The final compound is essentially a single isolated chemical molecule, stripped entirely of the original food's nutritional benefits.
What to look for & how to avoid it: The ‘95% loophole’ means that when the label says ‘natural strawberry flavouring’, at least 95% of the flavour must come originally from a strawberry, but when the label says ‘natural flavouring’, zero has to come from a real food source. It’s a completely generic cocktail of molecules designed to trick your brain into tasting a specific fruit that never existed, and additives are often used as processing aids. Opt for natural Greek Yoghurt and use real fruit or honey to sweeten.
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Supermarket layouts are manipulating your shop
If you’ve ever ‘popped’ into the shop for eggs and milk and come out with a lot more, this is exactly what the large supermarkets wanted. Supermarket psychology shows 90% of people turn right upon entering the shop, and stores place high-margin, colorful seasonal goods, or fresh produce in this ‘prime real estate’ to set a positive, abundant tone immediately. They’re hoping that once you’ve filled up on healthy foods, you’ll let your guard down and treat yourself to a ‘deal’. Everyday essentials like milk, eggs, bread, and butter are hidden at the very back or far corners of the supermarket too. To get them, you have to walk past dozens of other aisles, exposing you to hundreds of items you didn't plan on buying.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Write a list, stick to it, and don’t go shopping when you’re hungry. Be aware that ‘eye level is buy level’ for both adults and kids - those colourful sugary cereals and sweets are often placed at the eye level of children so adults will feel pressured to buy them in the hopes of avoiding a tantrum.
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Apples are covered in wax & forever chemicals
Studies across Europe and North America show that up to 93% of conventional apples contain pesticide residues with 36% containing traces of neurotoxins, and others with ‘forever chemicals’ linked to hormonal imbalances and fertility challenges. Apples naturally produce their own waxy layer, but this is washed away during commercial cleaning and replaced with artificial way made from carnauba or shellac - an insect secretion.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Look for UK origin and organic certification - organic apples in the UK are sprayed without synthetic chemical pesticides or petroleum-based waxes. Buy from your local farmer’s market, or use the bicarbonate of soda soak: Soak apples in a bowl of water mixed with 1 teaspoon of bicarb per 500ml of water for 12 to 15 minutes, then rinse thoroughly.
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Atlantic farmed salmon are fed genetically modified food
Farmed salmon live in net pens without access to natural shellfish, so their feed is supplemented with compounds that make their flesh a consistent pink shade. It’s another way of tricking us into associating the colour of fish with a healthy food we want to eat. Genetically modified feed has also been approved for Atlantic farmed salmon, using GM soy and canola sprayed with glyphosate and other herbicides.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Under current UK regulations, food products from animals fed with GMOs do not require a GM label, so you’d never know. Look for Alaskan wild-caught salmon, which feeds on a natural diet and is more sustainable than other types of wild salmon. Oysters and sardines are even more clean and sustainable seafood choices.
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Strawberries & Grapes contain a ‘pesticide cocktail’
These foods often top the ‘dirty dozen’ list, with the most amount of pesticides used to produce them. While governments test and set safety limits for individual pesticide chemicals, they completely ignore how these chemicals behave when combined. In the real world, human exposure to pesticides doesn’t happen one isolated chemical at a time, and when combined, pesticides can interact to create a ‘cocktail’ - highly toxic even if every single pesticide within it remains perfectly within ‘legal safety limits’.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Choose organic whenever possible, and use the bicarbonate of soda soaking method to remove pesticides from the fruit’s skin.
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‘Healthy’ kids’ snack bars can be laden with additives
They’re marketed as ‘healthy lunchbox options’, but turn over the packet and you’ll often find 20+ ingredients in your kid’s snacks. Glycerol is a sugar alcohol used as a sweetener with links to digestive issues when consumed in large amounts; sulfur dioxide (E220) is used to preserve the colour of ingredients but can pose a risk for children with asthma; and sunflower oil shows up often in snack bars, leading to kids consuming an excess of pro-inflammatory omega 6 oils when they consume these often.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Whenever possible, choose whole-food options like fruit, cheese, or bars with shorter, cleaner ingredient lists from Nakd Bar or Deliciously Ella. Our Grass-Fed Beef Sticks are a popular option for parents looking for a low-sugar snack with ingredients you can trust.
9. Synthetic vitamins are being added to bread
By December 13, 2026, all white and brown non-wholemeal wheat flour in the UK must be legally fortified with synthetic folic acid. The issue lies in the fact that at least 50% of people in the UK have at least 1 MTHFR gene mutation. People with MTHFR gene mutations don’t process synthetic folic acid well. It’s harder for them to convert it into the essential, usable form of folate and may build up in the body, potentially blocking your cells’ ability to receive real, usable folate and mask B12 deficiencies.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Choose wholemeal bread or flour, non-wheat flours like spelt or maize, or gluten free flour with minimal added ingredients.
10. More supermarkets are using green-washing to get you to buy their products
Premium paper packaging and language like ‘natural’ or ‘fresh’ can make any food product sound more healthy and wholesome than it really is. The truth is that green-washing is everywhere now, and their claims are pretty misleading. For example; Planet Farms produce salad leaves in vertical indoor farms, heavily marketing their 95% water and land savings while glossing over the massive carbon footprint caused by the immense energy required to run artificial lights and climate control systems 24/7, a trick known as ‘Greenlighting’.
What to look for & how to avoid it: Be aware of labels like ‘eco friendly’, ‘natural’ or images of nature on packaging, and look instead for the real origin of your food - can you find the name of the actual farm or grower it’s from? Seek out local farms producing genuinely clean food from real soil under real sunlight whenever you can.
Discovering these supermarket secrets makes us even more passionate about championing the work of real farmers, real farms and real food you can actually trust.
Which secret shocked you the most? How do you navigate the supermarket aisles?
Here’s to pulling back the curtain on Big Food and making better choices every time we shop
The APE team