Sustain’s report A Children’s Future Fund – How food duties could provide the money to protect children’s health and the world they grow up in, summarised on FoodBev.com, starts with and focuses mainly on soft drinks.
Before reading what I have to say, I suggest you refer to the response from the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) which highlights the positive actions the industry is already taking – and has been taking for some time. The Food and Drink Federation makes an interesting point about the potential impact on poorer families too.
I’ve read the full report and once again the phrase ‘soft target’ strikes me. Only three weeks ago I found myself responding to a sensationalist story in the UK press, linking soft drinks to depression in a blatantly flawed study.
The Sustain report lists support from over 60 worthy organisations and you might be interested to read who some of them are. Looking at the bigger picture, I wonder – if they are truly concerned about obesity – are these the same organisations who didn’t club together with Sustain to object when the government allowed schools to start selling off their playing fields?
Short term, the soft target of non-alcoholic beverages is the prime, headline grabbing focus, but the report does state its long-term recommendations too. On page 39 it recommends that – later – the UK VAT system should be revised, so that, ‘instead of being riddled with bizarre anomalies, it is linked to the healthiness of foods through a nutrient profiling system.’ The example it gives is that fruit juice is currently standard rated whilst chocolate chip cookies are VAT zero rated.
So, for now, the obsession is with soft drinks and issues around other food groups can apparently wait.
And here are some of the organisations supporting the recommendations. Consider their agendas and wonder why they are not pushing to prioritise the VAT anomalies and nutrient profiling system first. Perhaps it is because that won’t grab so many headlines?
British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry, Campaign for Real Farming, Community Composting Network, Consensus Action on Salt and Health, Food Ethics Council, Food Matters, Garden Organic, Linking Environment and Farming, Organic Research Centre, Permaculture Association, Pesticide Action Network UK, School Food Matters, Waste Watch, Woodcraft Folk, and World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
And finally, I think it also interesting that Denmark scrapped its plans to impose a similar tax last November.
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