Effective policies to promote sugar reduction in soft drinks: lessons from a comparison of six European countries

Des politiques efficaces pour promouvoir la réduction du sucre dans les boissons non alcoolisées: leçons tirées d'une comparaison entre six pays européens

Olivier Allais (), Géraldine Enderli (), Franco Sassi and Louis-Georges Soler ()
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Olivier Allais: UMR PSAE - Paris-Saclay Applied Economics - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Géraldine Enderli: INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, LISIS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences, Innovations, Sociétés - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Université Gustave Eiffel
Franco Sassi: Centre for Health Economics and Policy Innovation - Imperial College London
Louis-Georges Soler: UMR PSAE - Paris-Saclay Applied Economics - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: Background Many countries have sought to incentivise soft drinks manufacturers to reduce sugar in their products as part of efforts to address a growing prevalence of obesity. Are their policies effective? Methods Using a difference-in-differences design, we compared trends in the sugar content of 10 695 new sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) launched between 2010 and 2019 in six European markets, including the UK and France (taxes designed to incentivise reformulation), the Netherlands (policy based on voluntary agreements to reduce sugar), Germany, Italy and Spain (no national policies). Results The announcement in 2016 and adoption in 2018 of the UK tax led to yearly reductions in average sugar content of 17% (95% CI: 15–19%) to 31% (13–48%) between 2016 and 2019, compared to 2015, while the 2018 French tax produced a 6% (95% CI: 5–7%) sugar reduction only in 2018, compared to 2017, shortly after it was redesigned to provide a stronger incentive for reformulation. Voluntary agreements implemented in the Netherlands in 2014 led to an 8% (95% CI: 4–13%) sugar reduction only in 2015, compared to 2013. Conclusion The analysis supports the conclusions that sugar reductions in new SSBs have been greater in countries that have adopted specific policies to encourage them; a sugar-based tax design encourages more sugar reductions than a volume-based tax design; the tax rate and the amount of the tax reduction from switching to the next lower tier in a sugar-based tax design may be critical to incentivize reformulation.

Date: 2023-09-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-des and nep-mac
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Published in European Journal of Public Health, 2023, 33 (6), pp.1095-1101. ⟨10.1093/eurpub/ckad157⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04204294

DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/ckad157

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