Big Sugar fights back

The announcement of the South African government’s plan to implement a 20% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages took industry players and health officials by surprise.
Discussions on a study costing R33 million were well advanced when the announcement was made by the National Treasury in February.
“The study has been two years in the making. Industry and senior Health Ministry officials have been talking and just when we had finalised the concept and agreed to the finances and logistics, we were told of the tax,” said Portia Mpofu, the SA Sugar Association’s director of external affairs.
The Consumer Goods Council of SA had gathered industry players to discuss the escalating lifestyle diseases among South Africans with the Health Department, she said.
Among the collaborators were food and sugar producers and they had undertaken to fund the study jointly. “The questions were what do South Africans eat, what are their lifestyle habits, what contributes to the high obesity rates, as well as the increase in sugar diabetes, hypertension and other diseases,” said Mpofu.
The process had been spearheaded by the Ministry of Health, which had brought all the role players together to tackle the problems of non-communicable diseases stalking the heath of the nation.
“We were shocked. In fact we felt betrayed when sugar was singled out as the cause of the country’s obesity problems,” the association’s vice-chairman Suresh Naidoo said.
Naidoo and other officials from the association were briefing the media on their submissions on the proposed sugar tax yesterday and said they were rejecting the proposal in its current form.
“The imposition of the tax would have far-fetching ramifications for the industry and all who depend on it for their livelihood,” the association’s chairman Rolf Lutge said.
He said an estimated one million people stood to be affected by any job losses emanating from the need to downgrade production and the possible shutdown of some business aspects of sugar production.
“About 85 000 would be directly affected and 350 000 indirectly.
“And when you factor in those dependent on the industry for their livelihood, that figure becomes a million,” he said.
The association made its feelings known on the controversial 20% levy on sugar sweetened beverages.
The topic has sparked both fury and agreement since Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan made the announcement during his budget speech in February. He said the tax would discourage people from drinking sugar-sweetened drinks and therefore reduce obesity in the country.
It would also help reduce the high burden of non-communicable diseases which held the country’s health system under siege, he said, to wide condemnation from specialists and companies in the sugar industry.
They said obesity could not be targeted via one food item, in a country of poor health practices and lifestyles.
The arguments included examples of countries with a sugar tax which had failed to achieve the desired effects.
“The plan is to dig deep and root out the cause of all the country’s health problems,” said Siduduzo Myeza, nutritional manager at the sugar association.
And on the sidelines of that plan have been engagements by industry and the Health Department, on reshaping the diet of South Africa and changing the way the nation ate and viewed food.
“In a calorie reduction forum, we have had commitment on changing advertising and marketing, restaurateurs have undertaken to reduce portions and ingredients, a focus on what children are exposed to... a lot of work is being done for the South African community,” he said.