On April 6th, 2018 the UK sugar tax was put into motion. After many debates about whether the levy would be beneficial for the UK, George Osborne stated it is a ‘budget that is putting the next generation first’. The applied levy has stated that many sugary soft drinks with the likes of Coca-Cola and Red Bull will be affected by their high sugar recipes.
The tax motions that prices of such drinks will increase. Soft drinks which contain over 5 grams of sugar per 100ml such as Coca-Cola and Sprite which has over 8 grams of sugar per 100ml will have their prices raised. The idea behind the scheme is to tackle the nations obesity problem. According to diabetes.co.uk the levy is expected to raise over £520 million per year where funds will be used to fund sport in primary schools. Taking the money from the newly priced sugary soft drinks is being put back into the next generations fitness and health.
Researchers have suggested that previous levies have worked in reducing chronic disease worldwide such as the alcohol and tobacco duties. However, big branded companies such as Coca-Cola and many other beverage producers have responded to the newly actioned sugar tax suggesting that there is no evidence which supports that this kind of levy will lead to a reduction in obesity.
The cost of the tax is just that. Prices of your favourite soft sugary drinks as of the 6th April have gone up. Drinks that hit the band of more than 8 grams of sugar per 100ml will have a cost increase of 24 pence per litre. Drinks containing 5 grams of sugar will now cost you an extra 18 pence per litre. It isn’t just the supermarkets which have increased their prices. Every student favourite, JD Wetherspoons has recently increased the cost of sugary soft drinks by 10 pence whilst restaurants such as Pizza Hut and TGI Fridays planning to cut the free refills. So, the cost of our health is burning an extra hole in our pockets.
The recommended maximum amount of sugar intake per day is 30 grams for people aged 11+ and the investigations into the sugar content in the ingredients of some of the UK’s most popular soft beverages show: (per 100ml)
· Red Bull 11 grams
· Coca-Cola 10.6 grams
· Fanta Orange 6.9 grams
· 7 Up 11 grams
· Sprite 6.6 grams
So, what will be the chances of the beverage companies affected by the sugar tax adapting their recipes to avoid the extra costs to their customers? Well, the increase is only a couple of pennies however those pennies mount up leaving us with the choice to spend a little extra for our favourite sugary drink and just cut back on the amount. With the shocking statistics of the number of grams of sugar in these drinks maybe we should all think about counting our pennies and counting the grams.