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Does the EU sugar policy reform increase added sugar consumption? An empirical evidence on the soft drink market

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  • Céline Bonnet
  • Vincent Requillart

Abstract

Whereas National Health authorities recommend a decrease in the consumption of ‘added’ sugar, a reform on the sugar market will lead to a 36% decrease of the sugar price in the EU. Using French data on soft drinks purchases, this paper investigates the anticipated impact of this reform on the consumption of sugar‐sweetened beverages. The reform of the EU sugar policy leads to a decrease in regular soft drink prices by 3% and varies across brands. To assess substitution within this food category, we use a random‐coefficients logit model that takes into account a large number of differentiated products and heterogeneity in consumers' behavior. Results suggest that price changes would lead to an increase in market shares of regular products by 7.5% and to substitutions between brands to the benefit of products with the highest sugar content. On the whole, it would raise consumption of regular soft drinks by more than 1 litre per person per year and consumption of added sugar by 124 g per person per year, this increase being larger in households composed of overweight and obese individuals. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Céline Bonnet & Vincent Requillart, 2011. "Does the EU sugar policy reform increase added sugar consumption? An empirical evidence on the soft drink market," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(9), pages 1012-1024, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:20:y:2011:i:9:p:1012-1024
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1721
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    5. Irz, Xavier & Mazzocchi, Mario & Réquillart, Vincent & Soler, Louis-Georges, 2015. "Research in Food Economics: past trends and new challenges," Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, Editions NecPlus, vol. 96(01), pages 187-237, March.
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    7. Bonnet, Céline & Réquillart, Vincent, 2011. "Strategic Pricing and Health Price Policies," IDEI Working Papers 671, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised Jul 2012.
    8. Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Klein, Gordon J. & Rickert, Dennis & Wey, Christian, 2013. "Inter-format competition among retailers: The role of private label products in market delineation," DICE Discussion Papers 101, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
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    10. Caro, Juan Carlos & Ng, Shu Wen & Taillie, Lindsey Smith & Popkin, Barry M., 2017. "Designing a tax to discourage unhealthy food and beverage purchases: The case of Chile," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 86-100.
    11. Bonnet, Céline & Réquillart, Vincent, 2013. "Tax incidence with strategic firms in the soft drink market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 77-88.
    12. Joselin Segovia & Mercy Orellana & Juan Pablo Sarmiento & Darwin Carchi, 2020. "The effects of taxing sugar-sweetened beverages in Ecuador: An analysis across different income and consumption groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, October.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

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