The Food Foundation and SHEFS release new salt and sugar tax impact report

15 Apr 2024 --- The UK charity The Food Foundation and the Sustainable & Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) global research program are part of the Recipe for Change campaign calling on the UK government to introduce an industry levy to make food healthier. The organizations have released a policy brief investigating how switching to foods lower in salt and sugar would affect affordability, healthy weight and the environment.

“The food categories analyzed were biscuits, crackers, bread, breakfast cereals, confectionery, desserts, savory snacks and sweet spreads. These eight categories were analyzed as they typically contain high amounts of sugar and salt and are food groups on which people spend a large share of their total food expenditures – a quarter (24.57%) of people’s total food spend goes toward these eight categories alone,” Alice English, project officer at The Food Foundation, tells Food Ingredients First.

Patricia Eustachio Colombo, member of the SHEFS team and co-author of the published work, continues: “Consuming foods lower in salt and sugar could lead to noticeable reductions in people’s daily calorie intake and body weight, thus lowering the share of individuals living with overweight and obesity in the UK from approximately 60-65% to 40-45%. The lowered prevalence of obesity would highly likely significantly bring down the current £19.2 billion (US$23.9 billion) cost to the NHS.”

Health impact  
The policy brief is based on a preprint research paper, yet to be peer-reviewed, which models the possible effects on food choice of the salt and sugar tax proposed in the 2021 National Food Strategy (NFS).

Food swaps with reduced sugar and salt could reduce caloric consumption and thus the average BMI and body weight as well.“The suggested substitutions would bring about important improvements to obesity levels in the UK,” Colombo explains. 

 English adds: “The research modeled the impact the swaps might have on healthy weight. The modeling suggests that substitutions could lead to reductions in the number of calories consumed from these categories and therefore a reduction in average BMI and body weight.” 

“For both males and females with overweight, daily calorie intake was reduced (by 204 and 159 kcal, respectively), and this led to reductions in body weight and BMI over time. This suggests these substitutions could result in a relative reduction of average BMI in the UK adult population by 7% and 5.4% for males and females respectively and lower the proportion of adults considered overweight.” 

Food cost 
The report asserts that the introduction of a salt and sugar tax would not necessarily result in added costs for consumers.  English details that the recommended tax would be aimed at manufacturers purchasing sugar and salt for use in processed foods and drinks.

‘It would put the onus on businesses and not on individuals to change, encouraging the reformulation of products (to use less sugar and salt) rather than being a tax on consumers. It is worth mentioning the success of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, which after six successful years has seen a 46% reduction in sugar in soft drinks,” she highlights.

“Whether the tax is economically regressive will depend on the extent to which manufacturers choose to reformulate their products, the extent to which tax costs are passed through to consumers, and the extent to which consumers change their product choices.”

“This modeling found that a salt and sugar tax on the eight categories studied meant prices of all foods in these categories increased, but in the context of the suggested substitutions, going from foods high in salt/sugar to those lower in salt/sugar would not be more expensive for consumers.” 

 English points out that the NFS proposed a series of additional measures to protect low-income households and reduce the risk of the tax being regressive. “It recommended using the revenue from the tax to subsidize healthier foods, such as through funding social prescribing of fruit and vegetables.”

The tax impact depends on manufacturers’ reactions, if they pass tax costs to consumers, and if consumers change their behavior.Environmental impact
The modeled food swaps suggest a notable reduction in the environmental impact associated with the typical UK diet. 

Colombo outlines that: “The suggested food swaps would — if aggregated over the entire adult population of the UK – lead to savings of 2.7 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. That is equivalent to the yearly average emissions of about 1.6 million cars in the UK.”

English adds: “The total daily reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for the eight categories could lower the average food-related emissions of an adult in the UK by 2-3%, all without requiring substantial dietary or behavior change.”

Policy implications 
Based on their research findings, The Food Foundation and SHEFS propose several recommendations to UK policymakers. 

“The research suggests policymakers should consider fiscal incentives for reformulation to build on the successful sugary drink industry levy, such as a salt and sugar tax — as recommended by the NFS — as these have huge potential to incentivize the food industry to change as well as influencing the relative cost of unhealthy foods compared to healthier foods,” English elaborates. 

“As an increase in food prices would, however, risk affecting lower-income families who spend a proportionately larger share of their income on food, and fiscal policies should ensure that any potential risk to people on low incomes is minimized.”

“As such, the revenue raised from the tax should be invested back into supporting children’s health and reducing dietary inequalities by supporting those on lower incomes to access a healthier diet,” English concludes. 

By Milana Nikolova