Is Reformulation Still a Suitable Goal for Sugary Beverage Taxes? A Response to Recent Commentaries

Document Type : Correspondence

Authors

1 Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

2 School of Global Health, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

3 MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Abstract

Is Reformulation Still a Suitable Goal for Sugary Beverage Taxes? A Response to Recent Commentaries

Keywords

Full Text

In 2019, one year after the UK government implemented a sugary beverage tax (SBT) known as the “Soft Drink Industry Levy” (SDIL), we interviewed 18 marketing experts.1 We explored how soft drink companies adapt their marketing in response to a SBT, specifically by adjusting products, their placement, promotion, and pricing (the “4Ps”). The framework we developed shows how companies actively assess their context in order to inform decisions about marketing, meaning that: (i) company reactions to a SBT could be pre-empted if enough is known about these contextual factors from the outset; and (ii) SBTs could be designed to mitigate the potentially health-undermining reactions of market leaders. ...(Read more...)

References

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History

  • Receive Date: 22 November 2023
  • Revise Date: 30 November 2023
  • Accept Date: 02 December 2023
  • First Publish Date: 02 December 2023

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