Washington D.C. (USA) Jan 15 (ANI): After the British government introduced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) in the country, the soft drink companies have drastically reduced the sugar content in the Aerated drinks. Researchers in the UK have looked at the nutritional information of a range of soft drinks in the UK, including carbonated drinks, concentrates, 100 percent juice, and bottled water, and combined this with sales data from 2015-2018.
There has been considerable pressure on the industry to reduce the sugar content of the drinks, and in April 2018, the British government introduced the SDIL. Lead researcher Lauren Bandy said, “This study is not designed to evaluate the specific effects of the SDIL, but nonetheless shows that sustained pressure on business, including using fiscal measures, has led to a striking reduction in the sugar content of soft drinks in the UK.”
The research, published in BMC Medicine, shows that individual soft drink companies in the UK are making a sizeable contribution to sugar reduction, with eight out of the top 10 companies reducing the sugar content of their products by 15 percent or more.
The two biggest companies, Coca-Cola and Britvic, had reduced the total quantity of sugars they sold in drinks by 17 percent and 26 percent respectively, although the sugar content of their flagship brands Coca-Cola and Pepsi remained unchanged. There were increases in volume sales of sugars in drinks sold by Innocent and Red Bull; the sugar content of their products was largely unchanged, but the companies had seen increases in overall volume sales.
The analysis shows that nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of the reduction seen in the amount of sugar sold in soft drinks was due to the reformulation of existing products or the introduction of new, lower-sugar drinks, and 27 percent was due to changes in purchasing behaviour.
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