A government clamp-down on sugar would be damaging and unnecessaryGovernment intervention in the market can only be justified if there is a market failure and if government action will make a positive difference. This paper looks at several potential failures in the sugar market. These include...

In March 2016, George Osborne announced a ‘sugar levy’ on soft drink companies to start in April 2018. Under this policy, companies will be taxed on sales of medium and high sugar drinks (excluding fruit juice and milk-based drinks). As an anti-obesity policy, the sugar levy seems arbitrary....

Taxing food and soft drinks in the name of obesity is not a new idea. Dozens of jurisdictions have experimented with such taxes over the years, allowing economists to study their impact. The results have consistently showed the following: demand for sugary drinks, snacks and fatty foods is...

Since 2015, the UK government has worked with the food industry to reformulate a wide range of food products to reduce sugar, fat and calorie content. The industry has been given the target of lowering the number of calories in certain products by 20% by 2025. The reformulation scheme was...