A Richmond supermarket has removed confectionery and soft drinks from all its checkouts in a bid to encourage healthier snacks.

The sugar-free approach to the checkouts at Fresh Choice in Richmond, near Nelson, means chocolate bars, lollies and biscuits have been replaced with fresh fruit, salads and water.

Owner Gary Watson said he was confident it was the first full service supermarket in the country to have made the move away from sugary products at the checkout.

MARION VAN DIJK Fresh Choice Richmond customer Tiffany Price is pleased with the confectionery-free checkouts.

"It's certainly a moral decision, not a financial one it is safe to say, well and truly," Watson said. "Personally, myself and my wife weren't comfortable with the amount of sugary stuff we had at checkouts."

An awareness of how sugar contributed to the growing obesity rate was a factor in the decision, he said.

They made the change on Tuesday and although it was early days, Watson said the response from the public had been huge.

A post on the supermarket's Facebook page had been shared hundreds of times and attracted comments from people around the country, many wishing their local supermarkets would do the same.

Parents in particular were excited about it, he said.

Mum Tiffany Price said she thought it ws a "brilliant" idea and it was good not to have the temptation there.

MARION VAN DIJK/FAIRFAX NZ Fresh Choice Richmond owner operator Gary Watson said the public response to the new sugar-free checkouts has been overwhelmingly positive.

"It is always really easy at the end of the day to pick up a chocolate bar because you are hungry and tired and you want to get home," she said. "It's not just the children either it is adults too."

Watson said they had decided not to just replace the sugary items with sugar-free alternatives which would have been easy to do.

Along with fresh fruit, salads and water other checkout products included batteries and phone cards.

Watson said some of the products would change seasonally. Currently there were cold and flu remedies and vitamins on display; in summer they would be changed out for sunscreen and other products.

Watson said his family have been selling groceries in Richmond for the last 59 years and and in that time there had been lots of change in the food industry.

He said it wasn't about dictating what people could buy as cold soft drinks and chocolate would still be available to shoppers, but Watson would no longer be dedicating a prime position to those products.

At this stage, the financial impact was unknown.

"I made the decision on our personal beliefs and after that what will be, will be," he said. "We are hoping that the public will get behind us and what we lose in the short term will be made up in goodwill and support in the community."

He hoped that the decision to implement sugar-free checkouts and positive response would encourage others to do the same.

Countdown spokesman James Walker said Countdown introduced dedicated confectionery-free checkout lanes in its stores more than 10 years ago.

He said most stores had at least one confectionery-free checkout which contained items like nuts, dried fruit, travel sized hand cream, muesli bars or iTunes cards.

"We continually review our offer at the checkout to ensure we provide a good mix of convenience products for busy shoppers."

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