Dataset Information

The impacts on food purchases and tax revenues of a tax based on Chile's nutrient profiling model.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In June 2016, Chile implemented the Law of Food Labelling and Advertising, which included a mandatory front-of-pack warning labels on food and beverages high in added sugar, saturated fat, sodium or energy density, restrictions on child-directed marketing and on the promotion and sales of these products in schools. The regulation does not include taxes although Chile had implemented a tiered tax on SSBs two years before this law was implemented. Therefore, the objective of the study was to simulate the impact of taxing food and beverages based on the cutoff's points for warning labels on purchases and revenues.

Methods

We derived price elasticities using the linear approximation of the almost ideal demand system for six groups of labeled food and beverages (with a warning label based on the regulation) and unlabeled (with no warning label): 1) unlabeled beverages, 2) labeled beverages, 3) unlabeled cereal based products, 4) labeled cereal based products, 5) labeled meat and fish and 6) labeled sweet snacks and desserts. The study used data on household food beverage purchases from the Kantar WorldPanel Chile and Euromonitor sales to adjust the Kantar elasticity results to the national average. We estimated revenues under three tax scenarios for all labeled food and beverages: 10%, 20%, 30% of the final price excluding taxes.

Results

Except for labeled fish and meat, all food and beverage groups were price elastic. After accounting for a reduction in consumption after the taxes, economic and population growth, revenues for all groups could reach between 457 million USD to 1.3 billion USD. These results based on the much larger tax base of these labeled "high in added sugar, salt or saturated fat or energy density" foods and beverages is much larger.

Conclusion

This fiscal package could be implemented in countries with warning labels to enhance health and welfare. The Chilean warning label front-of-the-package system provides an important guide for countries considering policies to reduce diet-related non communicable diseases, including obesity. The fiscal policy impact alone, as shown here for Chile, will be highly impactful in reducing ultra-processed food intake and generating revenues.

SUBMITTER: Colchero MA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8638973 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:ImportanceIndia faces an increasing obesity problem, including in the Indian state of Kerala in which the fat tax was implemented but was nullified 11 months later. A fat tax, defined as a tax on unhealthy foods, may be associated with changes in food purchases and outcomes for multiple diet-related diseases.ObjectiveTo investigate the association between the state-level fat tax and fast food purchases in Kerala, India.Design, setting, and participantsThis cohort study analyzed a large-scale credit and debit card transaction data set and aggregated this sample at the account-year-month level of fast food purchases in Kerala state and 9 major cities in other Indian states (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Surat). Purchase records were obtained for January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2017. The association between the fat tax and fast food purchases was examined using the difference-in-differences method. This analysis was initiated on December 1, 2022.ExposuresThe exposure was the fat tax. Kerala was the exposed group, and 9 major Indian cities were the control group.Main outcomes and measuresThe main outcome was the fast food purchase ratio, defined as the proportion of fast food purchases of the total food purchases. Changes in the fast food purchase ratio were estimated in Kerala across the sample period and then compared with 9 major cities.ResultsThe sample for analysis included 238 015 credit and debit card accounts, of which 36.7% were in Kerala and 63.3% were in 9 major cities. The cardholders included 191 603 males (80.5%) with a mean (SD) age of 36.6 (12.8) years. During the fat tax implementation (August 2016-June 2017), Kerala's fast food purchase ratio decreased by 3.9 percentage points (β [SE], -0.039 [0.002]; 95% CI, -0.042 to -0.036), compared with 9 major cities. After the fat tax was nullified, the fast food purchase ratio reduced by 5.6 percentage points (γ [SE], -0.056 [0.002]; 95% CI, -0.059 to -0.052) compared with 9 major cities and using the pretax period as the benchmark.Conclusions and relevanceResults of this cohort study suggest that the Kerala fat tax was associated with fewer fast food purchases. Food tax policies need to have an elaborate design, and related issues, such as social inequality, nutritional deficiency, and political concerns, need to be evaluated in future studies.

Project description:BackgroundOn October 1, 2014, the Chilean government modified its previous sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax, increasing the tax rate from 13% to 18% on industrialized beverages with high levels of sugar (H-SSBs) (greater than 6.25 grams [g] sugar/100 milliliters [mL]) and decreasing the tax rate from 13% to 10% on industrialized beverages with low or no sugar (L-SSBs) (less than 6.25 g sugar/100 mL). This study examines changes in beverage prices and household beverage purchases following the implementation of the tax reform.Methods and findingsWe used longitudinal data collected between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2015, from 2,000 households. We defined the pretax period as January 1, 2013, to September 30, 2014, and the posttax period as October 1, 2014, to December 31, 2015. We conducted a pre-post analysis for changes in prices and purchases, with the latter examined by volume and calories. We compared posttax changes in prices and purchases to a counterfactual, defined as what would have been expected in the posttax period based on pretax trends. All results are stated as comparisons to this counterfactual. We linked beverages at the bar code level to nutrition facts panel data collected by a team of Chilean nutritionists who categorized them by taxation level and beverage subcategory, which included carbonated and noncarbonated H-SSBs and concentrated, ready-to-drink L-SSBs and untaxed beverages. We reconstituted concentrated beverages and analyzed all beverages using as-consumed volumes and calories. Posttax monthly prices of H-SSBs increased, but these changes were small. Prices of carbonated H-SSBs increased by 2.0% (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.0%-3.0%), while those of noncarbonated H-SSBs increased by 3.9% (95% CI 1.6%-6.2%). Prices of L-SSB concentrates decreased after the tax by 6.7% (95% CI -8.2%--4.6%), and prices of ready-to-drink L-SSBs increased by 1.5% (95% CI 0.3%-2.7%). Households decreased monthly per capita purchases of H-SSBs by 3.4% by volume (95% CI -5.9%--0.9%) and 4.0% by calories (95% CI -6.3%--1.9%), and this change was greater among high socioeconomic status (SES) households. The volume of household purchases of L-SSBs increased 10.7% (95% CI 7.5%-13.9%), while that of untaxed beverage purchases decreased by 3.1% (95% CI -5.1%--1.1%). The main limitation of this study was that there was no control group, so we were unable to assess the causal impact of the tax.ConclusionsThe modifications of Chile's SSB tax were small, and observed changes in prices and purchases of beverages after the tax were also small. Our results are consistent with previous evidence indicating that small increases in SSB taxes are unlikely to promote large enough changes in SSB purchases to reduce obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

Project description:BackgroundFood purchasing is considered a key mediator between the food environment and eating behavior, and food purchasing patterns are increasingly measured in epidemiologic and intervention studies. However, the extent to which food purchases actually reflect individuals' dietary intake has not been rigorously tested. This study examined cross-sectional agreement between estimates of diet quality and nutrient densities derived from objectively documented household food purchases and those derived from interviewer-administered 24-h diet recalls. A secondary aim was to identify moderator variables associated with attenuated agreement between purchases and dietary intake.MethodsPrimary household food shoppers (N = 196) collected and annotated receipts for all household food and beverage purchases (16,356 total) over 14 days. Research staff visited participants' homes four times to photograph the packaging and nutrition labels of each purchased item. Three or four multiple-pass 24-h diet recalls were performed within the same 14-d period. Nutrient densities and Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) scores were calculated from both food purchase and diet recall data.ResultsHEI-2010 scores derived from food purchases (median = 60.9, interquartile range 49.1-71.7) showed moderate agreement (ρc = .57, p < .0001) and minimal bias (-2.0) with HEI-2010 scores from 24-h recalls (median = 60.1, interquartile range 50.8-73.9). The degree of observed bias was unrelated to the number of food/beverage purchases reported or participant characteristics such as social desirability, household income, household size, and body mass. Concordance for individual nutrient densities from food purchases and 24-h diet recalls varied widely from ρc = .10 to .61, with the strongest associations observed for fiber (ρc = .61), whole fruit (ρc = .48), and vegetables (ρc = .39).ConclusionsObjectively documented household food purchases yield an unbiased and reasonably accurate estimate of overall diet quality as measured through 24-h diet recalls, but are generally less useful for characterizing dietary intake of specific nutrients. Thus, some degree of caution is warranted when interpreting food purchase data as a reflection of diet in epidemiological and clinical research. Future work should examine agreement between food purchases and nutritional biomarkers.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02073643 . Retrospectively registered.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Chile's Law of Food Labeling and Advertising, implemented in 2016, was the first national regulation to jointly mandate front-of-package warning labels, restrict child-directed marketing, and ban sales in schools of all foods and beverages containing added sugars, sodium, or saturated fats that exceed set nutrient or calorie thresholds. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of this package of policies on household beverage purchases. METHOD AND FINDINGS:In this observational study, monthly longitudinal data on packaged beverage purchases were collected from urban-dwelling households (n = 2,383) participating in the Kantar WordPanel Chile Survey from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2017. Beverage purchases were linked to nutritional information at the product level, reviewed by a team of nutritionists, and categorized as "high-in" or "not high-in" according to whether they contained high levels of nutrients of concern (i.e., sugars, sodium, saturated fat, or energy) according to Chilean nutrient thresholds and were thus subject to the law's warning label, marketing restriction, and school sales ban policies. The majority of high-in beverages were categorized as such because of high sugar content. We used fixed-effects models to compare the observed volume as well as calorie and sugar content of postregulation beverage purchases to a counterfactual based on preregulation trends, overall and by household-head educational attainment. Of households included in the study, 37% of household heads had low education (less than high school), 40% had medium education (graduated high school), and 23% had high education (graduated college), with the sample becoming more educated over the study period. Compared to the counterfactual, the volume of high-in beverage purchases decreased 22.8 mL/capita/day, postregulation (95% confidence interval [CI] -22.9 to -22.7; p < 0.001), or 23.7% (95% CI -23.8% to -23.7%). High-educated and low-educated households showed similar absolute reductions in high-in beverage purchases (approximately 27 mL/capita/day; p < 0.001), but for high-educated households this amounted to a larger relative decline (-28.7%, 95% CI -28.8% to -28.6%) compared to low-educated households (-21.5%, 95% CI -21.6% to -21.4%), likely because of the high-educated households' lower level of high-in beverage purchases in the preregulation period. Calories from high-in beverage purchases decreased 11.9 kcal/capita/day (95% CI -12.0 to -11.9; p < 0.001) or 27.5% (95% CI -27.6% to -27.5%). Calories purchased from beverages classified as "not high-in" increased 5.7 kcal/capita/day (95% CI 5.7-5.7; p < 0.001), or 10.8% (10.8%-10.8%). Calories from total beverage purchases decreased 7.4 kcal/capita/day (95% CI -7.4 to -7.3; p < 0.001), or 7.5% (95% CI -7.6% to -7.5%). A key limitation of this study is the inability to assess causality because of its observational nature. We also cannot determine whether observed changes in purchases are due to reformulation or consumer behavioral change, nor can we parse out the effects of the labeling, marketing, and school sales ban policies. CONCLUSIONS:Purchases of high-in beverages significantly declined following implementation of Chile's Law of Food Labeling and Advertising; these reductions were larger than those observed from single, standalone policies, including sugar-sweetened-beverage taxes previously implemented in Latin America. Future research should evaluate the effects of Chile's policies on purchases of high-in foods, dietary intake, and long-term purchasing changes.