The war on obesity.
The world is turning against soda.
Governments around the world have been trying to convince citizens to drink less soda by making it more difficult – or at least, more expensive – for consumers to get their sugary caffeine fix.
As a result, soda giants like PepsiCo and Coke are making major changes to soda products and diversifying their offerings outside of sugary drinks.
Most recently, Philadelphia is on the cusp of becoming the first major American city to begin taxing soda.
On Wednesday, the City Council voted to pass a tax increase of 1.5 cents per ounce of sugar-added and artificially sweetened soft drinks. If the beverage tax is officially passed next week, it’s expected to raise approximately $91 million over the next year.
While Philadelphia would be the first major American city to successfully pass an overarching, anti-soda tax, it’s far from the first to try. In fact, cities across the US and countries around the world are exploring the option to tax soda to decrease obesity, with the cost falling on both consumers buying sugary drinks as well as companies that sell them.
Berkeley, California is one of the few American cities with an existing policy, passed in 2014 and going into effect in May 2015.
The city imposed a penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, meaning if a distributor, like a convenience store, bought a 20-ounce bottle of Coke to sell to consumers,the store would pay an extra 20 cents, and presumably, pass that charge on to consumers to make up the cost. […]
Various types of soda taxes have already been passed in countries including France, Hungary, and Mexico.
A 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in Mexico in January 2014, which made soda more expensive for consumers, was associated with a 12% reduction in sales of taxed drinks. While critics have said that the reduction isn’t enough to significantly impact consumers’ health, it was enough to cause concern for soda giants attempting to grow their sales in the country.
Increasing prices may convince consumers to cut down on their soda intake slightly but likely not enough to cause a huge change to their health. Cutting into soda makers’ sales, however, is already convincing Coke and Pepsi to make some major nutritional changes.
The UK, for example, is taking the corporation-centric approach more directly with a new policy that taxes soda-makers based on their sugar content that will be introduced in September 2017 . By targeting soda giants, not consumers, the tax puts the onus on companies to revamp recipes – not customers to cut soda out of their diet.