Effect of Formulation, Labelling, and Taxation Policies on the Nutritional Quality of the Food Supply

Taxes on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

“…In practice, experiences with implemented SSB taxes have shown that revenue generation is difficult to predict with any precision, particularly when a tax is successful in reducing sales and/or incentivizing product reformulation. Revenue collected from the U.K. SDIL, for example, in the first six months was reportedly less than half what had been forecast due to the extent of reformulation that took place before the tax had even been implemented (Vandevijvere 2019).…”

Can Food Reformulation Policy Reduce Calorie Intake and Tackle Childhood Obesity?

“…The global market share of child-oriented food products is remarkable and high-calorie food products with low nutritional value make up a lion share of commercially promoted products (13). Childhood obesity: A plan for action in the United Kingdom (14), the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation of the United States (7), the Charters of Voluntary Engagement of the French government (15) and Brazilian government agreement with representatives of the food industry to voluntarily reduce the sugar content in their products (16) are among significant policies to promote public health and improve food environments in the countries of interest. Food systems and major dietary patterns are already affected by leading packaged and processed food products and such policies welcomed by the food industry and key players in the food and health sectors.…”

Changes in the amount of nutrient of packaged foods and beverages after the initial implementation of the Chilean Law of Food Labelling and Advertising: A nonexperimental prospective study

“…Recent reports suggest that reformulation is the most cost-effective measure to improve populations' diets and health status [4,6,7]; although some authors question whether reformulation will result in a significant improvement of the overall nutritional quality of the diet [8]. Different voluntary or regulatory strategies may incentivize reformulation: setting standards for nutrient amount (e.g., banning trans fats or adding upper limits for the amount of sodium) [5,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], implementing fiscal policies, or adding easy-tounderstand front-of-package (FOP) nutrition labeling on packaged foods and beverages [17][18][19][20][21], among others. However, as most of these strategies are voluntary, industry is less likely to comply, limiting the impact of the measures [9,10,18,20,22,23].…”

“…Different voluntary or regulatory strategies may incentivize reformulation: setting standards for nutrient amount (e.g., banning trans fats or adding upper limits for the amount of sodium) [5,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], implementing fiscal policies, or adding easy-tounderstand front-of-package (FOP) nutrition labeling on packaged foods and beverages [17][18][19][20][21], among others. However, as most of these strategies are voluntary, industry is less likely to comply, limiting the impact of the measures [9,10,18,20,22,23]. In June 2016, Chile implemented the Law of Food Labelling and Advertising (hereafter, the law) that mandates that packaged foods and beverages with added sugars, saturated fats, or sodium that are above the established cutoffs of nutrients of concern or energy must display up to 4 FOP warning labels that say "high in [nutrient of concern]" (hereafter, products "high in").…”