Tesco Cuts Sugar in Soft Drinks Range

07 Nov 2016 --- Tesco has cut more sugar out of its own brands of soft drinks as part of a reformulation strategy to offer healthier alternatives.

The supermarkets says the move aligns to recommendation that sugars should make up no more than 5 per cent of people’s daily diet and halves the sugar content in some products including Tesco Cola.

It first reduced sugar in its soft drinks range in 2011 and now the final 50 products in the 251-strong range have been reformulated to less than five grams per 100 ml which means on average 20 percent less sugar from Tesco branded soft drinks compared with five years ago. 

Regular Tesco Cola previously contained 9.7g of sugar per 100ml and now contains 4.8g of sugar per 100ml. All products now contain less than 5g of sugar per 100ml.

“This is just one part of our plans to make the food on our shelves healthier by reducing levels of sugar, salt and fat in our own brands. We have worked to make sure our soft drinks still taste great, just with less sugar. Tesco customers are now consuming on average over 20 per cent less sugar from our soft drinks than in 2011. We’re hoping this initiative will help make it a little easier for our customers to live more healthily,” says Matt Davies, Tesco UK and ROI CEO.

The soft drinks will be on the shelves of UK Tesco stores from Friday November 11. 

Tesco is part of a long-term national partnership with Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation focused on improving the nation's health. Chris Askew, Diabetes UK CEO welcomes the move and urges other producers to follow suit.

“Helping customers lead healthier lives by reducing sugar in its own brand soft drinks is a welcome move by Tesco. Similar action from other manufacturers and retailers to make products lower in sugar, saturated fat and salt is vital to tackle rising rates of obesity in the UK.

“Making the healthy choice the easy choice for all of us will help to tackle the rapidly rising number of people developing Type 2 diabetes, he says.

The reformulation milestone is part of Tesco’s on-going plan to reduce sugar, salt and fat across all its own brands to offer healthier choices for shoppers. The supermarket has also reduced the salt, fat and sugar in more than 4,200 of its own products since 2012 and plans further reductions in another 1,000 products each year over the next three years. 

Putting it into perspective Tesco has calculated that more than 300 tons of saturated fat and 15 tons of salt has been removed from own brand butter and spreads, while 65 tons of fat, 600 tons of sugar and 27 tons of salt have been removed from the Tesco own brand cooking sauces range.