Ian Quinn reported in The Grocer [subscription may be required] this weekend that UK health
officials are about to begin a shock advertising campaign through social media
aimed at highlighting the amount of sugar contained in some soft drinks. I
endorse the "GULP" campaign. Here’s three reasons why.
Reason #1: Suppliers need to work harder at finding & delivering better solutions for consumers!
Ambiguous on-pack labelling is still a problem.
It’s a scandal that soft drinks brands have been able for years to declare on their single-serve packs that these packs contain 2 - sometimes 3 - servings. It’s hard to see how it was nothing more than a mechanism to hide the true calorie and sugar content of their beverages, especially since numerous focus groups and other research repeatedly showed that most people consume these drinks in one go and, worse, could not easily calculate the total calorie and sugar content.
Updated serving size declarations and nutritional traffic lights have begun to appear on some soft drinks but it’s still a voluntary arrangement and adherence to guidelines (interpretation of “primary field of vision”, colour coding etc.) is patchy even across pack types for the same brand. For consumers and regulators to begin trusting us, all suppliers & manufacturers are going to have to commit to more transparent, consistent labelling.
Complaining that soft drinks should not be singled out is not quite right.
In the UK, nearly a quarter (25%) of the added sugar in our diet comes from carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit juice, and other non-alcoholic drinks. That the BSDA would argue – fairly I’d agree on face value - leaves 75% from somewhere else which, according to the same report, is accounted for by sugar, preserves and confectionery (27%), biscuits, buns, and cakes (20%), among other food groups. The challenge for the BSDA in maintaining this stance is two-fold. Firstly, some will argue that other added sugar sources have many more (satisfying) substitutes available to consumers than non-alcoholic drinks. Even more damning however is evidence compiled in 2011 by Harvard researchers on 200,000 people which essentially finds that
Although not the only culprit by a mile, the soft drinks industry has long been a BIG part of the
sugar over-consumption problem and we’d look less silly if we stopped pretending otherwise.
Selling some lower calorie / no calorie substitutes is not enough.
Offering artificially-sweetened lower calorie alternatives is no longer enough. Artificial sweeteners like aspartame, Acesulfame-K, and sucralose that have either a CSPI “caution” or “avoid” label are being shunned by more and more people. Consumers are looking for more natural – and innately beneficial – beverages. If more of these types of beverages were available, probably containing a minimal amount of sugar and/or natural sweeteners to help “wean” us off our sugar crush, we may be halfway home!
Reason #2: Retailers need to do more to help change attitudes & behaviours. Why?
Soft drinks aisles in a time warp
Consumers standing in front of a soft drinks aisle of leading supermarkets might be excused for believing that they have been sucked into a time warp that transported them back to the mid/late 2000s. The shelves haven’t changed much in reality. A store visit last week to the chilled non-alcoholic drinks’ aisle of a leading supermarket (pictured below) revealed the following:
Short term pressure to “hit internal sales & SKU rationalisation targets” encourages maintenance of the status quo
The focus of many buyers is on driving more availability of beverages which fall into the 86% of facings described above. They would argue that these are their best-selling - or is it best supported? - lines which, for me, is just another "chicken and egg situation." Consumers can only buy better beverages if they were actually available on shelf and mpre prominently displayed.
It’s also true that what leading supermarkets do with their fixtures also has a significant domino effect on what the corner shop does with its own shelves, so unless more brave steps are taken by retailer CEOs, the imposition of a sugar tax is looking more likely than not. However, it will only really hit the pockets of consumers as they will still be faced with limited choice. Perhaps a display ban on certain soft drinks’ shelves like one put in place for cigarettes may be a more effective mechanism to force retailers to close the real availability gaps.
Reason #3: These campaigns work!
It worked for smokers
Simply put, the visual and graphical Aussie-style “Give up loving pop” campaign will succeed in cutting through the “noise” and explaining to consumers the potential health impact of sugar over-consumption through soft drinks - without being forced to listen to the sometimes indeciperable arguments either way. This type of “shock” campaign worked successfully to reduce cigarette usage after smokers had long grown numb to higher taxes and mixed messaging issued by a factious group comprising industry, activist groups, and even some public bodies.
The campaign may help to focus minds a bit on what's really at stake
Despite the increasingly ugly exchanges about who’s to blame for – and how to reduce - sugar over-consumption, it would be naïve to suggest a Putin-Poroshenko type truce. Still, it would be helpful if all stakeholders could try harder to conduct the “sugar over-consumption” debate in a way that did not result in no one listening to any of it – especially consumers! After all, it is the consumer we ultimately serve. They deserve better.
Reason #1: Suppliers need to work harder at finding & delivering better solutions for consumers!
Ambiguous on-pack labelling is still a problem.
It’s a scandal that soft drinks brands have been able for years to declare on their single-serve packs that these packs contain 2 - sometimes 3 - servings. It’s hard to see how it was nothing more than a mechanism to hide the true calorie and sugar content of their beverages, especially since numerous focus groups and other research repeatedly showed that most people consume these drinks in one go and, worse, could not easily calculate the total calorie and sugar content.
Updated serving size declarations and nutritional traffic lights have begun to appear on some soft drinks but it’s still a voluntary arrangement and adherence to guidelines (interpretation of “primary field of vision”, colour coding etc.) is patchy even across pack types for the same brand. For consumers and regulators to begin trusting us, all suppliers & manufacturers are going to have to commit to more transparent, consistent labelling.
Complaining that soft drinks should not be singled out is not quite right.
In the UK, nearly a quarter (25%) of the added sugar in our diet comes from carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit juice, and other non-alcoholic drinks. That the BSDA would argue – fairly I’d agree on face value - leaves 75% from somewhere else which, according to the same report, is accounted for by sugar, preserves and confectionery (27%), biscuits, buns, and cakes (20%), among other food groups. The challenge for the BSDA in maintaining this stance is two-fold. Firstly, some will argue that other added sugar sources have many more (satisfying) substitutes available to consumers than non-alcoholic drinks. Even more damning however is evidence compiled in 2011 by Harvard researchers on 200,000 people which essentially finds that
"people who drink sugary beverages do not feel as full as if they had eaten the same calories from solid food, and studies show that people consuming sugary beverages don’t compensate for their high caloric content by eating less food."
Selling some lower calorie / no calorie substitutes is not enough.
Offering artificially-sweetened lower calorie alternatives is no longer enough. Artificial sweeteners like aspartame, Acesulfame-K, and sucralose that have either a CSPI “caution” or “avoid” label are being shunned by more and more people. Consumers are looking for more natural – and innately beneficial – beverages. If more of these types of beverages were available, probably containing a minimal amount of sugar and/or natural sweeteners to help “wean” us off our sugar crush, we may be halfway home!
Reason #2: Retailers need to do more to help change attitudes & behaviours. Why?
Soft drinks aisles in a time warp
Consumers standing in front of a soft drinks aisle of leading supermarkets might be excused for believing that they have been sucked into a time warp that transported them back to the mid/late 2000s. The shelves haven’t changed much in reality. A store visit last week to the chilled non-alcoholic drinks’ aisle of a leading supermarket (pictured below) revealed the following:
- 86% of facings are accounted for by two types of beverages, namely those that score “red” on nutritional traffic lights (53%) i.e. >13.5g sugar per drink or those that contain enough artificial sweeteners to enable them to fall below the “red” line (33%)
- 14% of facings are accounted for by beverages that score “green” on nutritional traffic lights (with over half being bottled water and the rest are natural sweetened)!
Short term pressure to “hit internal sales & SKU rationalisation targets” encourages maintenance of the status quo
The focus of many buyers is on driving more availability of beverages which fall into the 86% of facings described above. They would argue that these are their best-selling - or is it best supported? - lines which, for me, is just another "chicken and egg situation." Consumers can only buy better beverages if they were actually available on shelf and mpre prominently displayed.
It’s also true that what leading supermarkets do with their fixtures also has a significant domino effect on what the corner shop does with its own shelves, so unless more brave steps are taken by retailer CEOs, the imposition of a sugar tax is looking more likely than not. However, it will only really hit the pockets of consumers as they will still be faced with limited choice. Perhaps a display ban on certain soft drinks’ shelves like one put in place for cigarettes may be a more effective mechanism to force retailers to close the real availability gaps.
Reason #3: These campaigns work!
It worked for smokers
Simply put, the visual and graphical Aussie-style “Give up loving pop” campaign will succeed in cutting through the “noise” and explaining to consumers the potential health impact of sugar over-consumption through soft drinks - without being forced to listen to the sometimes indeciperable arguments either way. This type of “shock” campaign worked successfully to reduce cigarette usage after smokers had long grown numb to higher taxes and mixed messaging issued by a factious group comprising industry, activist groups, and even some public bodies.
The campaign may help to focus minds a bit on what's really at stake
Despite the increasingly ugly exchanges about who’s to blame for – and how to reduce - sugar over-consumption, it would be naïve to suggest a Putin-Poroshenko type truce. Still, it would be helpful if all stakeholders could try harder to conduct the “sugar over-consumption” debate in a way that did not result in no one listening to any of it – especially consumers! After all, it is the consumer we ultimately serve. They deserve better.
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