Colour coding for bottles of soft drinks

The Health Ministry’s colour coding regulations for soft drinks based on the sugar content came into effect from yesterday making it mandatory for the lid or the bottle cap to be coloured red, amber or green to indicate the sugar content in the beverages. Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne expects the new regulations to impact on the excessive consumption of soft drinks with high sugar content in the wake of health studies indicating that excessive consumption of sugar had a direct bearing on the sharp increase of diabetes.

The colour coding will help consumers to select the beverage based on the sugar content while helping to curb the growing number of diabetics A100 millilitres’ bottle of soft drinks with the green coding will mean a sugar content of less than two grams, the amber coding a sugar content between two and 11 grams and a red coding a sugar content of more than 11 grams of sugar.

These regulations are based on World Health Organization (WHO) standards. All companies producing soft drinks have been briefed on the new regulations which has been gazetted will be effective from August 1.

A Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) spokesman said samples of 36 soft drinks were analyzed and most of them contained a high sugar level. “The regulation calling for the introduction of colour codes will be useful to consumers who will be made aware of the sugar content in the beverages they consume,” he said.

An awareness programme will also be carried out among schoolchildren and similar codes will be introduced to warn the public about the salt and fat content in food items.

The regulation calling for the introduction of colour codes will be useful to consumers who will be made aware of the sugar content in beverages