The sugar empire strikes back

As calls for a sugar tax become louder – it may have to be introduced to curb obesity rates, the chief medical officer for England has said – food and beverage manufacturers decided it was high time to tell the government what’s what, and in a language politicians understand: the language of money.

In March 2014 members of the Food & Drink Federation and Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) met in Westminster to point out the wider impact The Coca-Cola Company has on the UK economy. As UK media reported, CCE had enlisted the help of independent researchers, who – no surprise really – found out that for each job provided by Coca-Cola, a further eight jobs are created across Great Britain both upstream and downstream – a total of 34,500.

The independent research also revealed that, for every GBP 1 of value created by Coca-Cola, the company supports an additional GBP 8 elsewhere in the British economy, adding up to GBP 2.4 billion (EUR 2.9 billion) annually.

According to media sources, Gavin Partington, Director General of the British Soft Drinks Association, added: „In the UK, the soft drinks industry creates around 20,000 jobs and 115,000 jobs in the wider supply chain. In the UK, we consume four billion litres of soft drinks each year and exports amount to 233 million. It’s important that everyone understands the contribution we make.“

Read that last sentence carefully. It’s directed at the government and conveys the unspoken message: If you regulate us further, you only have yourself to blame if our business runs into trouble and we have to scale down.”

Shrewdly, Coke used the meeting in Westminster to announce that its bottler CCE plans to invest GBP 52 million (EUR 63 million) this year in the UK alone, which translates into GBP 1 million a week.

Veröffentlicht am 9. April 2014 auf sofies-verkehrte-welt.de

Ina Verstl is a freelance journalist and  a special feature writer and commentator for Brauwelt International.
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