The impact of tiered soft drink taxes in Europe on mean sales-weighted sugar content of soft drinks: a quasi-experimental study.

Abstract

Background: High sugar intake from soft drinks is associated with increased risk of non-communicable diseases. Tiered soft drink taxes applying higher tax rates on beverages with higher sugar content have been used to incentivize producers to reduce sugar content of soft drinks. This study assesses the impact of tiered soft drink taxes in four European countries on the sugar content of soft drinks.

Methods: We used annual sales data from 12 countries from Euromonitor International for 2009 to 2022 to estimate the effect of tiered soft drink taxes in France, Ireland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom (UK) on soft drinks' mean annual sales-weighted sugar content. We conducted a quasi-experimental study, applying a synthetic control approach in which we used a weighted combination of eight European countries without a soft drink tax serving as control for the four intervention countries.

Results: France, Portugal, and the UK exhibited negative estimated treatment effects, indicating a reduction in average sugar content in these countries. The UK demonstrated the largest estimated effect (-1.7 g sugar/100 ml; 95%-CI: -2.6; -0.8), followed by France (-0.6; 95%-CI: -1.7; 0.4) and Portugal (-0.3; 95%-CI: -1.5; 1.0). Ireland (0.4; 95%-CI: -0.8; 1.7) displayed effects in the opposite direction. Results of the sensitivity analyses indicate that results are robust concerning assumptions underlying the study design and analysis strategy.

Conclusions: Varying effect sizes emphasize the importance of considering specific tax design, co-interventions and contextual factors when implementing tax policies. Further research could help to shed light on these variations and to achieve a higher level of accuracy and precision in the effect estimates.