Budget high street health and beauty stores Kruidvat and Trekpleister are phasing out the sale of tobacco products at their 1,400 shops in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Cigarettes no longer fit in which the ‘healthy’ image which the shops are trying to promote, Gerard van Breen, chief executive of owner AS Watson Health & Beauty Benelux, told the AD on Thursday.

‘Health has an increasingly important role in our shops and tobacco does not fit in with that,’ Van Breen said. Both Kruidvat and Trekpleister sell over the counter medicines, beauty products, vitamins and related products at knock-down prices.

Tobacco products account for a couple of percent of group sales and will be phased out in stages this year and in 2019. ‘Cigarettes are not illegal so we are going to go through our stock, not throw it away,’ he said.

The first revamped Kruidvat without tobacco products has already opened its doors.

Kruidvat has also joined the Alliantie Nederland Rookvrij, a cancer charity initiative to encourage people to give up smoking, the AD said.