*4.5. Implications of the Findings*

In summary, PL products in major NZ supermarkets can be a good choice for consumers as they are usually lower in price, nutritionally similar to BL products, and more likely to display a HSR score. Retailers have made progress on their nutritional and labeling commitments regarding PL products. However, further positive movements can be made, including displaying the HSR on all products and establishing a systematic PL reformulation programme operating across all foods, but with an emphasis on categories with a high sales volume. These recommendations are important for public health given that PL products are driving the growth of sales in NZ supermarkets, and most NZ shoppers believe these supermarket own brands are 'just as good or better than' their branded counterparts [41].

To set a level playing field for all companies and retailers, and to help consumers make healthier choices, the government should make display of the HSR mandatory. While this study did not assess reformulation, providing targets for reformulation of common products would provide benchmarks for retailers and the wider food industry.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/article/ 10.3390/nu13082731/s1, Table S1. Description and number of products assessed by food category from 2015 to 2019 (overall and by private and branded label). Table S2. Number and proportion of products with missing information for sugar content, sodium content, estimated HSR and HSR displayed on front-of-pack-labelling from 2015 to 2019, by food category (overall). Table S3. Sodium content within the selected food categories: mean (SD) from 2015 to 2019—in total, for branded and private labels. Table S4. Sugar content within the selected food categories: mean (SD) from 2015 to 2019—in total, for branded and private labels.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, H.E., T.C., S.M., L.Y. and C.N.M.; methodology, H.E., T.C., S.M., L.Y. and C.N.M.; data preparation, H.E. and T.C.; formal analysis, T.C.; investigation, H.E., T.C., S.M., L.Y., C.N.M. and E.T.; writing—original draft preparation, T.C., S.M., H.E. and G.S.; writing—review and editing, L.Y., C.N.M., G.S. and E.T.; funding acquisition, C.N.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funded Centre of Research Excellence in Reducing Salt Intake using Food Policy Interventions, grant number APP1117300.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Because of the commercial and legal restrictions to the use of copyrighted material, it is not possible to share data openly, but unredacted versions of the dataset are available with a licensed agreement that they will be restricted to non-commercial use. For access to Nutritrack, please contact the National Institute for Health Innovation at the University of Auckland at enquiries@nihi.auckland.ac.nz.

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to thank John Faatui for data management and the fieldworkers for 2019 Nutritrack data.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funder had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

#### **References**

