A recent survey of United Kingdom consumers found that most Britons need a tax on junk food brands and ultra-processed products, believing this would help tackle the obesity crisis.
Consumers in the UK appear to be involved in a developing vendetta against the UPF, with almost two-thirds (62%) saying, according to a Health Foundation survey, that bad food adverts will also be banned from TV and online. line before nine at night. like 53% of them. It is not easy to impose a tax on UPF manufacturers.
But it’s not just the British. European consumers also vilify UPFs, with 67% believing they contribute to emerging degrees of obesity and other fitness problems, according to a recent survey conducted by the EIT’s Food Consumer Observatory.
EU citizens also have less acceptance of UPFs in general: 40% say the industry is not sufficiently regulated and 67% dislike foods that contain unrecognizable ingredients.
So, if such a tax were implemented, what effect would it have on manufacturers?And would this assistance reduce consumers’ waistlines?
Initiating a UPF tax would be difficult to manage and is unlikely to address customer concerns, according to Danny Butt, principal at consultancy Food Innovation Solutions. “If it’s communicated at a macro level, as a tax it can be similar to the sugar tax [in the United Kingdom], so if it’s built around that it will end up in a scenario where some brands will have to reduce their prices or absorb [tax]. »
And then there is the permanent debate about what a UPF is. Consumers think that UPFs are junk food rich in fat, salt and sugar, “but when they are told that they are also their deli meats in the refrigerator, their opinion changes. Butt says, “They don’t need food taxes like that. ”
“The UPF tax raises a whole range of problems,” says Klaus Grunert, director of the EIT Food Consumer Observatory and professor at Aarhus University in Denmark. “There is no transparent definition of what a UPF is. There will have to be a definition of what it is, although this depends on regulators, who will depend on the experience of nutritionists.
If a tax were to be implemented, Grunert suggests that it could simply be based on the excess negative nutrients a product contains, rather than the processing point used to produce it. But in Denmark, for a short time [in 2011], we had a saturated fat tax that didn’t [and was repealed in 2012] because of all sorts of practical issues,” he acknowledges. Butt suggests, however, employing a smooth traffic system.
Professional bodies and food industry stakeholders already use approximate definitions of food processing grades in the Nova classification system. It classifies foods into categories based on the degree of processing, such as unprocessed, processed, processed, or ultra-processed foods. But it has been criticized for not specifying whether the UPF is “healthy” or “unhealthy” and for depending on processing degrees and not nutrition degrees.
Lately there is no official agreement on what a fear FPU is or how it would be classified in terms of “good” and “bad”.
And with that, there’s a desire to teach consumers about UPF as a whole, although, as Butt and Grunert point out, it’s not a linear story. “People have to make their own decisions, and it all starts with education,” Butt says. “However, rarely is a minimum of data more harmful than no data,” he adds, noting that domestic and foreign media policy includes junk food in the UPF category, although this is a much broader scenario than that.
The lack of schooling for clients at UPF is a major problem, a point highlighted through various knowledge sets in recent months. In the EIT Food Consumer Observatory study, customers found that it was complicated to classify foods in Nova classifications, indicating a lack of knowledge.
“Unless something [robust] is put in place, the debate [about what UPF is] continues to go around in circles,” Butt says. “When dealing with consumers, they can’t tell the difference between an additive and a ‘bad’ one. . ‘
“Unless someone makes a practical decision, there probably won’t be a useful independent rule to work with. But the industry wants to talk more about the processes used.
As for UPF’s surveillance, Butt and Grunert agree that it is the task of governments. And while governments might be hesitant now, as the debate and demonization of certain foods intensifies, they may soon need to do so so so that certain brands can paint towards transparent frames.