The challenge
High sugar intake from soft drinks was driving childhood obesity.
The case
Announced in March 2016 and introduced in April 2018, the UK's levy charged drink makers £0.18 per litre for drinks with 5 to 8 g of sugar per 100 mL and £0.24 per litre above 8 g, with no charge below 5 g. Fruit juices and milk-based drinks were exempt. Because companies had two years' notice, many reformulated their drinks to avoid the charge. By February 2019, the share of drinks over the 5 g threshold had fallen by 33.8 percentage points. Sugar sold per person per day from soft drinks fell 30% between 2015 and 2018. Later research linked the levy to a 1.6 percentage point fall in obesity among year 6 girls.
Why it worked
Taxing producers on a sliding scale, rather than consumers at a flat rate, pushed companies to change their products. The notice period was a feature, not a delay: it gave companies time to cut sugar before any tax was due.
Sources
- Scarborough, P., et al. (2020). Impact of the announcement and implementation of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy on sugar content, price, product size and number of available soft drinks in the UK, 2015-19. PLOS Medicine.
- Bandy, L. K., et al. (2020). Reductions in sugar sales from soft drinks in the UK from 2015 to 2018. BMC Medicine.
- Rogers, N. T., et al. (2023). Associations between trajectories of obesity prevalence in English primary school children and the UK soft drinks industry levy: An interrupted time series analysis of surveillance data. PLOS Medicine.
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