Sugar-sweetened beverages tax and front-of-package labelling in Peru: Two decades of history

The production and sales of carbonated soda have doubled in the last two decades in Peru. Such an increase in availability and access to carbonated soda, a major category of SSBs, presents a public health risk. In Peru, 70% of adults are either overweight or obese, and the existing health care system struggles to provide adequate patient care for all the related non-communicable diseases. Peru has had a tax, called ISC tax or “Impuesto Selectivo al Consumo”, of 17% for carbonated soda since 1999. In May 2018, the Peruvian government raised the ISC tax to 25%, an eight percentage points increase, for SSBs that contains 6g of sugar or more per 100 ml to fight against rising obesity and diabetes rates. Then, in June 2019, the ISC was modified for SSBs that contain 0.5 grams/100 ml of sugar or less. In September 2021, the upper range of the threshold was reduced from 6 to 5 grams per 100 ml, to match the requirements of the recently introduced front-of-package labeling Law, technically named Law to promote healthy eating among children and adolescents. In this article, we discuss the evolution of the SSBs tax in Peru since its inception, including its overlap with front-of-package labeling, in order to understand the historical context of taxation for prevention purposes and inform future robust monitoring and evaluation of the impact of such taxes, much needed to timely inform decision-makers.