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Consuming too much sugar, particularly in soft drinks, is thought to be a major factor in rising obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Photograph: PA
Consuming too much sugar, particularly in soft drinks, is thought to be a major factor in rising obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Photograph: PA

Sugar market reform 'could flood EU with cheap imports'

This article is more than 8 years old

Cambridge University study says better public awareness of risks associated with sugar may not offset effect of liberalisation

Europe could soon be swamped with cheap sugar – including fructose, which is blamed for fuelling the US obesity epidemic – because of the planned liberalisation of the sugar market, experts have said.

The market reforms take no account of their likely impact on health or their potential effect on those on the lowest incomes, according to Emilie Aguirre and colleagues from Cambridge University writing in the British Medical Journal.

Consuming too much sugar, particularly in soft drinks, is thought to be a major factor in the current surge in obesity, diabetes and heart disease in high and middle-income countries.

Reforms set to be completed in 2017 will end the artificial barriers, which have enabled a handful of Europe’s sugar beet producers to dominate the market, supplying sucrose to food and soft drinks manufacturers.

They will lose the protection of the EU’s common agricultural policy, which has kept sugar prices high, blocked imports and imposed a production cap on fructose.

In the US, sucrose has been displaced by high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Over the last 30 years, the price of soft drinks sweetened with cheap HFCS has dropped in comparison to the price of food, while in Europe the opposite is true, say the authors.

The World Health Organisation recommended earlier this year that sugar consumption should be cut, to ensure that no one gets more than 10%, and preferably no more than 5%, of their calories from it. The UK’s scientific advisory committee on nutrition endorsed the 5% advice.

Aguirre and her colleagues, however, said: “So far, relatively little attention has been given to important structural factors, including in agriculture, which influence sugar consumption in the UK.”

The guidelines and the new public awareness of the health risks associated with sugar may not be enough to offset the damage that a flood of cheap product could cause, they said.

“Substantially cheaper sucrose and high fructose corn syrup may … lead to greater marketing of foods high in sugars because these foods will remain very profitable, and potentially more profitable than in the past. This may encourage industry to resist regulations designed to reduce the use of sugars.”

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has welcomed the export opportunities that the end of the restrictions might bring the UK food industry.

According to the authors, it said in 2013 that “the boom in global demand for western-style foods is creating huge opportunities for growth” in the sucrose and food manufacturing sector which the UK should not hold back from.

Sugars and especially fructose, which is cheap and easier to use than sucrose, may be added to a wider range of foods to increase palatability and bulking, says the article. Any change is likely to happen in cheaper products, hitting the less well-off.

The authors say that “there is a risk that ongoing and proposed measures designed to reduce sugar consumption could be undermined by larger trends in price and production of sugars.” They recommend that Europe and the UK explore solutions to address the predicted increase of sugars in the food supply.

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