Insight Focus
The UK is a mature sugar market. Per capita sugar consumption has been falling for decades. Recent declines are linked to increased consumer awareness of sugar intake, changing tastes and product reformulation.
UK Per Capita Sugar Consumption Has Fallen for Decades
The United Kingdom is one of the world’s most mature sugar consumption markets. Per capita sugar intake grew steadily from the middle of the 1800s, peaking in the 1950s and 1960s as sugar became cheaper and more readily available.
However, for the past 60 years per capita sugar intake has been falling. Today, UK sugar consumption per person is roughly half of what it was at its peak. The decline pre-dates the tax on sugar-sweetened drinks and also the emergence of GLP-1 drugs. It is therefore likely to be linked to changing consumer tastes through time as well as an increased awareness of sugar intake.
Jam Tomorrow?
We can see some of these shifts in consumer tastes in more recent category level consumption data. For example, in the past ten years the amount of sugar consumed in jam in the UK has nearly halved. Jam by law has to contain a certain proportion of sugar; the sugar acts as a fruit preservative. Therefore, the loss in sugar intake from jams is presumably from lower jam sales. This is a remarkable situation from the country whose major culinary contribution to the world is afternoon tea, complete with scones, jam and cream.
Source: Euromonitor
In the same time, the amount of sugar sold in products like chocolate spread has increased by 10%. It’s difficult to avoid concluding that younger consumers’ preference is for those spreads over jam on toast and pancakes. This sort of generational shift may be difficult to reverse.
It’s a similar story for juice drinks, where the amount of sugar sold has declined precipitously. This decline reflects both reformulation under the SDIL and a shift away from sweetened juice drinks toward water and unsweetened alternatives. Again, it’s hard to see how this trend reverses.
Reformulation Because of Regulation
The UK was also one of the first countries in the world to introduce a tiered tax on sugar-sweetened drinks. The Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) was announced in 2016 and came into force in 2018. Drinks with a sugar content of more than 5g per 100ml were taxed, with a higher rate payable for drinks with more than 8g sugar per 100ml.
The tiered structure of the tax drove large-scale reformulation by drinks manufacturers, leading to an involuntary reduction in UK sugar intake. It’s possible that up to 100k tonnes of sugar consumption was reduced because of the tax.
Source: Euromonitor
However, perhaps more important for sugar intake was the news coverage of the tax. This coincided with increased consumer awareness of their sugar intake, a trend which started in the early 2010s when fat intake became less of dietary villain, with sugar seemingly taking its place.
It’s hard to therefore assess how successful the SDIL has been. It has certainly led to reduced sugar inclusion as an ingredient in drinks, and therefore to lower Uk sugar intake. It’s also helped raise awareness of UK sugar intake. It’s also been successful at raising government revenue. However, it doesn’t seem to have helped to reduce UK obesity levels in adults or in children, which was the original justification for introducing the tax.
Nevertheless, in the most recent UK Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the threshold for inclusion in the SDIL will drop from 5g to 4.6g per 100ml. Companies will have until 1 January 2028 to reformulate. Ready to drink coffees and milkshakes will also now be included in the tax.
Reformulation Because of Price
Unsurprisingly, category-level data shows a sharp drop in the amount of sugar added to soft drinks between 2016-18, thanks to reformulation. Through the last ten years, chocolate confectionery has been a stable category – no matter the generational changes, chocolate has remained universally popular.
However, since 2021, the amount of sugar sold in chocolate’s has started to gently decline. We suspect this is because chocolate prices have risen thanks to record-high cocoa prices.
Cocoa prices surged to record highs in 2024, driven by poor harvests and disease across West Africa, making chocolate more expensive to produce. In response manufacturers have increased prices, reduced pack sizes and introduced new products with less chocolate or thinner chocolate coatings. It will be interesting to see if these changes reverse when cocoa prices normalise.
Small Pockets of Growth
A handful of categories are growing in the UK. These aren’t large enough to make a major difference to overall sugar intake, but they’re growing quickly enough to be worth watching. Many of products are tied to convenience, and they show that people still enjoy sweetness despite increased awareness of sugar intake.
For example, cream liqueurs and ready-to-drink cocktails are growing steadily. So is ready to drink coffee. Traditional, coffee and beer were both bitter drinks, so it’s interesting to observe the emergence of sweet coffee and alcoholic options.
What This All Means
The UK’s sugar story is complex. On one hand, decades of gradual decline have reshaped the average diet, a trend that policy has accelerated in the past decade. On the other hand, consumer desire for sweetness hasn’t gone away. It has slowly migrated – from jams to chocolate spreads, from sugary drinks to low-to-no alternatives. We will continue to watch how the market evolves, and where/when the decline in UK per capita sugar consumption finally ends.
