Sugar Reduction Group Calls for Voluntary UK Reformulation Program

17 Mar 2014 --- Action on Sugar is ramping up its calls for the UK Government to use the lessons learnt from the successful UK salt reduction programme to do the same with sugar. The group, set up by the influential body, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), wants the Government to implement a similar voluntary and unobtrusive reformulation programme for manufacturers to gradually reduce the amount of sugar that is added to foods and setting targets in each food and drink category that has sugar added.

“We have known about the health risks of sugar for years and yet nothing has been done,” said Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Action on Sugar and co-author of the commentary on this subject in the Lancet. “We are calling the UK Government to reduce sugar in foods by any means necessary. We strongly urge the Department of Health and the Government to initiate a sugar reduction programme now by forcing the industry to slowly reduce the huge amount of sugar added by the food industry across the board, similar to salt. Unless they act now, obesity and diabetes are going to completely overwhelm the NHS.”

CASH teamed up with a raft of medical figures earlier this year to launch the campaign group, Action on Sugar. In January the group started its calls for moves to gradually reduce the amount of added sugar in good and soft drinks, and it claimed a 20 to 30% reduction would be ‘easily achievable’ within three to five years.

Food manufacturers have already been working hard to amend product formulations before any strategy is officially put in place. Tesco, for example, announced this week that it has launched its first own-label soft drink made with the natural sweetener, stevia. Stevia sweetener, which contains no calories, is made from the stevia leaf – a relative of the chrysanthemum. The leaves of the stevia plant are a source of natural sweetness and drinks containing stevia are said to reduce the sugar content by 30%.

Tesco’s drink is labelled as Tesco Classic 30% Less Sugar Cola, and it is being rolled out as part of a review of its soft drinks range – which is part of Tesco’s launch of a 10-point obesity plan for soft drinks. Fanta, part of the Coca-Cola Company, has also brought out its first stevia drink, raspberry & passionfruit. The group first introduced stevia in 2013 for its Sprite brand. And PepsiCo meanwhile, is reported to have launched a stevia-sweetener cola in Canada.

Stevia-based products have only been approved for use as food additives since 2008 in the US and since 2011 in the EU.

While soft drink producers such as Coca-Cola are making moves to offer reduced sugar variants, supporters of this proposed campaign want more food manufacturers to take part. Nutritionist of Action on Sugar and co-author of the commentary, Kawther Hashem said: “The huge amount of sugar added to food and drinks gives us calories with no nutritional value and doesn’t make us feel full, and this is particularly true for sugary soft drinks. Consumers are largely unaware of the amount of added sugar they are eating. Therefore food manufactures must help us to eat less sugar in our everyday foods.”

Manufacturers have already been successful with reducing salt levels in foods. Campaign Director for Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) and Action on Sugar, Katharine Jenner said, “Most people will be surprised to know that their basket of shopping contains 20-30% less salt then it did 10 years ago, this has reduced salt intake in adults by 1.5g per day and is predicted to have saved almost 9000 lives a year from strokes and heart attacks [Ref 3]. This is a fantastic example of how a government led programme can improve public health; the same should now be done for sugar.”

By Sonya Hook