The use of loss leaders can have damaging social effects.  Typically it is less healthy products that are heavily discounted, such as alcohol and fatty, sugary and salty processed food. Heavily processed food should cost more than fresh food, but supermarkets don't use fresh fruit or vegetables as loss leaders. The practice tends to distort the shopping behaviour of many of the poorest in society, pushing them into poor diets that lead to obesity, bad dental health and poor nutrition. Banning the practice would make it easier to encourage healthier diets and lifestyles. Selling alcohol below cost price leads to large social harms caused by alcoholism and binge-drinking. The use of alcohol as a loss leader has already been identified as a problem in some countries. In New Zealand, for example, Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises—the two companies that own all of the major supermarket chains in the country—agreed not to use alcohol as a loss leader.1 Of course companies in most countries would not agree to such a promise without being prohibited by law, and even New Zealand should go a step further by prohibiting all loss leaders, as alcohol is not the only good that can cause social harm when it is artificially inexpensive.  1 Robert Smith, “Lack of loss-leader sales good news for brand conscious wine industry,”National Business Review (New Zealand), June 19, 2009