Jamie’s sugar tax reduces fizzy drinks sales by 11%

FIZZY drinks sales fell at Jamie Oliver’s restaurants after he imposed his own ‘sugar tax’.

Adding a 10p charge resulted in an 11 per cent drop in sales after 12 weeks, a study found.

It bodes well for the Government’s sugar tax, which is to be introduced on all sugar-sweetened drinks next April.

The TV cook, who has long campaigned for state intervention on public health, added the levy to sugary drinks at his chain of 37 Jamie’s Italian restaurants in September 2015.

Menus also carried a message warning of the dangers of fizzy drinks to children’s diets.

The charge, which was donated to charity, put the price of a glass of Coca-Cola up to £2.65. Now an NHS-funded assessment by the University of Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has declared Oliver’s scheme a success.

The research, published in the BMJ Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, also found that sales had remained down 9.3 per cent six months later.

Lead author Professor Steven Cummins said: ‘A combination of the levy, menu changes and clearly explaining that the proceeds would go directly to a worthy cause look to have had a relatively large effect.’

When Oliver introduced the levy, he said: ‘Soft drinks are the biggest source of sugar among school kids and teenagers. We have to start here.’

‘Put Coca-Cola up to £2.65’