The Hidden Truth About the Junk Food Cycle. Part I: To Tax or Not to Tax?

In his government-commissioned report (15 July 2021), Henry Dimbleby recommended a series of measures, including a tax on wholesale salt and sugar used for the manufacturer of processed foods. Despite a food tax being unpalatable to the government, the rationale for a tax, Dimbleby argues, is that the preceding fourteen voluntary schemes to incentivise the industry have had negligible results. Besides, the purpose of the tax is to nudge food manufacturers to reformulate their recipes to minimise or avoid the tax. This was also the experience with the soft drinks industry levy (colloquially known as the sugar tax). From a sugar reduction, the sugar tax produced remarkable results.?

Speaking on behalf of food manufacturers, which it represents, the Food and Drink Federation opposes such measures. Ian Wright, the Chief Executive of the FDF, said: ‘obesity and food are very much about poverty, and we need measures to tackle poverty and to help people to make choices they need to make.’ In other words, move on. Nothing to see here. Besides, who said obesity and other diet-related health issues are confined to the poor? It is telling that in many Global South nations, affluence does not always lead to improved diets but greater access to highly processed foods. Food manufacturers are not intentionally seeking to make consumers addicted to high salt, sugar and fat products despite the above-the-line advertising spend, accessibility and proximity of highly processed foods. Still, if it is an inadvertent cause, we have reasons to be wary of food manufacturers claiming to be concerned about our health. One only needs to look at how international food manufacturers and brands formulate their recipes based on regional food regulations. The use of colours, additives and preservatives not seen in Europe for many decades feature heavily in familiar branded goods sold in the Global South.

Food glorious food

There is another reason the food and drink industry is concerned. The use of salt, sugar and fat have functionality beyond organoleptic properties. All three are ancient forms of food preservation. Think of salted fish. Or perhaps vegetables in olive oil. Sugar can reduce water availability, albeit not as effectively as salt. In addition to its use to sweeten and provide texture, sugar masks acidic, drying notes caused by citric acid and other forms of acid regulation. This means that highly processed foods, to have optimum shelf-life, need to use higher levels of salt, sugar and fat than would, say, be required by a similar meal made from scratch. One only needs to compare the ingredients list on a product label with a homemade recipe to realise highly processed foods contain more than the familiar ingredients found in our larders.?

I have no issue with salt, sugar or fat. They have always been present in our diets. However, what is new with highly processed foods and our modern lifestyles is the following:

• The?excess levels?of salt, sugar and fat for food preservation,
• The?change in form?from natural to modified versions of salt, sugar, fat and other ingredients, and
• The?appropriation of food systems.

Personally, I find the focus in the review on salt, sugar and fat na?ve and clunky. The issue is and has always been between natural and processed foods rather than the quantitative presence of these ingredients. We have struggled with this notion in the UK for many decades. Despite fears of seeing a red traffic light slapped on a banana, salted capers or olive oil, limiting a tax to highly processed foods as defined by Public Health England does exclude fruit, vegetables and minimally-processed goods such as natural juices. This allows the salt and sugar tax to indirectly serve its purpose.

Concerns about reformulation are not solely about price. At the heart of this intervention lies a more existential threat to the industry. It challenges the notion that food security lies in long, complex food supply chains. Via Campesina (1996:1), the transnational peasant and farm movement coined the term food sovereignty as: ‘the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.’ In contrast, the WTO and UN rely on market-led forces to end hunger (Lee, 2007). Cavalcanti’s three-pillar definition of UN food security is based on: ‘availability, access and stability (2005:153). This puts liberal decision-making policies at loggerheads with food as a life-sustaining need. Disruption in logistics caused by the pandemic which led to empty retail shelves highlights the fundamental flaws in the UN approach.

To tax or not to tax?

UK natural capital assets generate ￡11bn of primary agricultural commodities. From these, the agri-food sector generates ￡120bn of added value per year (Armstrong-Brown & Andrews-Tipper, 2017). This represents an eleven-fold increase. In addition, farm prices have fallen by 23% in real terms between 1980 and 2015 (ibid, 2017). We have never had it so good. There is enough wealth creation between supply chain actors through value-addition that allows them to collectively absorb marginal costs before feeling obliged to further financially burden primary producers or consumers. Let us not forget, Dimbleby is proposing a tax on wholesale salt and sugar used by the industry to make these food items and not the finished goods. It is misleading and wrong to assume any cost incurred could or should directly be passed on to the consumer.

The issue of cost is a sensitive and complex one. It is hardly a surprise that individuals and families that are both time and cash-poor have limited choices and opt for competitively priced, available and convenient goods. Although education plays a role, individuals are broadly aware when they make poor choices. Still, they have to trade off long-term health benefits with the pressing need to put food on the table. When you’re hungry, your thoughts are on securing calories to keep you going and not higher aspirations of a rainbow balanced, gut-loving diet. We’re hard-wired to seek out energy-dense food. Regrettably, for all the technology at our disposal, we have not evolved beyond or outgrown our hunter-gather origins.?

People talk of will. Those battling with weight are labelled weak-willed. Consider willpower as a muscle. It can only be exercised so much before it needs to rest. Struggling families use up their willpower on day-to-day firefighting. Daily decisions need to be made to forego a meal so that their children can eat or keep warm. They lack the time and space to be?mindful?of what they eat.?

But good people. Let us not be fooled. The social costs – or externalities – of our junk food reliance is already being paid by us citizens. We are paying for it with our health and livelihoods. We pay it with our taxes to address pollution and biodiversity loss caused by intensive agriculture and the NHS budget to deal with diet-related diseases. For example, the Dimbleby review highlights how poor diet contributes to 64,000 deaths a year in England alone and social costs amounting to ￡74bn. ￡14bn of the NHS budget is spent treating diabetes and related complications (Diabetes UK, 2019).

Conclusion

The objective of the tax is not to pay more but to consume less highly processed goods. The utility value of an extra biscuit or cake diminishes with price. This is not the nanny state dictating what you eat, but a nudge in a series of nudges to incentivise the right behaviour. Choice is about being equipped with the tools, knowledge and accessibility to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food. As parents, we should welcome interventions which promote the wellbeing and health of our children. As citizens, we should oblige our government to address the root causes of inequality which lead to food poverty. For this reason, I personally welcome and recommend one of the other proposals in this review, which aims to address diet-related inequality by extending free school meals, holiday support and basic culinary and nutritional skills.

References

Armstrong-Brown, S. & Andrews-Tipper, W. (2017). Natural investment: Futureproofing food production in the UK. Green Alliance.

Cavalcanti, H. B. (2005). "Food Security" in eds. Felix Dodds and Tim Pippard. Human & Environmental Security an Agenda for Change. London, UK: Earthscan pp 153- 165.

Lee, R. (2007). Food Security and Food Sovereignty. Centre for Rural Economy Discussion Paper Series No. 11.

Via Campesina (1996). Food Sovereignty: A Future Without Hunger. The UN FAO World Food Summit, Rome, Italy.