Ten different tobacco companies have been making illegal payments to Dutch supermarkets to encourage them to display and sell their products in a certain way, the Dutch food and product safety board NVWA said on Thursday.

The payments varied between €10,000 to €2m a year, junior health minster Paul Blokhuis told MPs in a briefing. [...] ‘It is extremely worrying that supermarket chains are receiving payment from tobacco producers in order to promote the sale of cigarettes and associated products,’ he said.