Failure of food firms to slash sugar ‘woeful’

‘We need a new approach’

VOLUNTARY agreements to cut sugar in cereals and snacks appear to have failed, an official report has revealed.

Experts last night branded the results as ‘woeful’ and urged ministers to impose laws to force firms to make food healthier.

They pointed to the fact the tax on soft drinks has reduced sugar content ten times as much as the voluntary agreements for food. The Government’s Childhood Obesity Strategy, announced by Theresa May in 2016, ‘challenged’ the food industry to slash sugar from biscuits, cakes, sweets and puddings by 20 per cent before 2020.

But an official report on the scheme, published by Public Health England yesterday after months of delays, showed sugar only dropped 2.9 per cent between 2015 and 2018.

The Government’s former obesity tsar, Professor Susan Jebb of Oxford University, described progress as ‘woeful’. The tax on soft drinks reduced sugar by 29 per cent in the same period. Alarmingly the sugar content of some foods, including cakes and chocolate, actually increased.

And the nation’s overall consumption of sugar also rose by 2.6 per cent in the time period.

Critics said the gulf in results between the voluntary and mandatory schemes showed relying on the goodwill of the food industry does not work. They stressed that, with twothirds of adults and a third of children in Britain overweight, the Government must impose mandatory rules to force companies to change.

Professor Jebb said: ‘ We need a new approach if we are serious about reducing sugar and calories from confectionery. This can’t be left to businesses. We need new policies to persuade people to eat less or to stop encouraging them to eat more.

‘Taxes may not be popular but they work to change purchasing behaviours. We have estimated that the effects of a tax on high-sugar snacks will be greater than a similar-sized tax on sugary drinks.’

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, called the scheme a ‘shambles’ and said expecting the industry to make products healthier voluntarily was like ‘leaving vampires in charge of the bloodbank’.

Tim Rycroft, of the Food and Drink Federation, insisted that the targets had been ‘hugely aspirational’ and could never have been met ‘in the ambitious timeframe’.