Where your can of coke costs more

Governments hope soda taxes may speed a drop in sugary drink consumption

Sugar taxes aimed at reducing demand for sweetened drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages are gaining momentum from governments looking to reduce obesity.

Philadelphia, for example, will impose a 1.5 cents-per-ounce levy on sweetened and diet beverages on January 1. The tax money will go toward improving the infrastructure and educational system of a city with a 26 per cent poverty rate, said mayor James Kenney.

"We're working to alleviate that through the passage of the beverage tax," he said at the Second Annual Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit in New York last week. Here's a look at the world's announced and implemented sugar taxes to date.

New nutrition label guidelines from the FDA that require disclosures on added sugar as a percentage of the recommended daily value starting in 2018 could also cut demand for sugary drinks, according to Gregory Elders and Shaheen Contractor, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence. The US beverage industry disagrees with the notion that soda consumption is connected to obesity but is making efforts to help mitigate the epidemic nonetheless.

"Beverage companies set a goal to reduce beverage calories consumed per person nationally by 20 per cent by 2025," said William Dermody, vice-president of policy at the American Beverage Association, a trade body representing the US non-alcoholic beverage industry. PepsiCo Inc. declined to comment for this story. The Coca-Cola Co. and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. did not respond to requests for comment.

Bloomberg