Sugar remained a luxury item such that in AD 1319 it cost ‘two shillings a pound’ in London which, according to, equates to about US$100 per kilo at today's prices. Unsurprisingly, the lucrative profits to be made importing sugar saw more and more European traders heading to the Middle East, most notably the Venetians but also Italian and Spanish merchants. Sugar was first recorded in England in 1099. With their conclusion, sugar was finally brought back to Europe, but access to this incredibly expensive product remained the preserve of monarchs, the nobility and only the wealthiest citizens.
#ENGLAND SUGAR STORY SERIES#
Then, beginning in the 11th century, a series of crusades were launched into the Holy Land whereupon the West’s warriors first encountered ‘sweet salt’.
By contrast the kingdoms of Mediæval Europe had little or no access to sugar. Even at this early stage, it seems like the sugar tax has done a lot of good before generating a single penny in revenue.During the Arab Agricultural Revolution, a Muslim chemist substantially improved sugarcane’s manufacturing process leading to sugar being adopted into Middle Eastern cuisine. Although we don’t know by exactly how much all drinks will have reduced their sugar content, these prominent examples suggest producers aren’t just doing the bare minimum to duck under the threshold.įrom a behavioural perspective, reformulation is particularly appealing as it doesn’t require individuals to change their habits to improve their health. Many household name brands have dramatically cut their sugar content including Sprite, Lucozade, Tesco and Irn Bru. We can also look at a selection of popular drinks to see how things have changed since 2016 when we first blogged about this. However it’s likely that this is a relatively small effect compared to the impact of all people who continue to consume the brand – we’ve previously written about how we think consumers will react to the new tax. Their drink of choice may have reformulated to have less sugar in it, but not no sugar.
#ENGLAND SUGAR STORY FULL#
It may mean that some people who would have switched from a full sugar drink to a zero sugar alternative as a result of the tax no longer do so. It is worth noting that the story on reformulation isn’t exclusively positive. So we’re talking about 15% of the market reformulating to make their drinks healthier. To put that in context, in 2015 total UK sales for soft drinks that could be subject to the tax was around 5000 million litres ( BSDA figures ). about 3 billion servings (at 250ml recommended serving). That would work out at 645-861 million litres of drink with reduced sugar content, i.e. We don’t have the full figures but, given that drinks can either be taxed at 18p or 24p per litre, we can get a rough estimate of the number of litres of drink in a year that have sufficiently reduced their sugar content to no longer be subject to the tax. The primary reason for this? Products are being reformulated with lower sugar content so they are either no longer subject to the tax, or fall within a lower tax bracket. A fair chunk of this reduction has come from getting more accurate sales data – the graph below corrects for the initial data error, and suggests that around £155 million will now no longer be collected. The most recent estimates for 2019-20 sugar tax revenue are down to £240m, from an initial estimate of £500m. It’s an important question, but it misses the key way in which the sugar tax is likely to improve our nation’s health: reformulation. With the Sugar Tax in force across the UK from today, many people are discussing what costs may be passed on to consumers and how they will react.
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