Government's line on sugary drinks too soft: campaigners

Tuesday December 12, 2006
By Ruth Berry

Full-sugar fizzy and energy drinks will be removed from all secondary schools by 2009, after a voluntary agreement between the Government and two of the biggest beverage companies.

But they intend to continue selling fruit juice and carbonated diet drinks, several containing caffeine.

This has angered some anti-obesity campaigners who believe the Government should be taking a harder line.

Health Minister Pete Hodgson said the agreement, reached with Coca-Cola Amatil and Frucor Beverages - which sells Just Juice, Myzone, Fresh Up, V and distributes Pepsi here - would see 1.1 million litres of full sugar beverages removed over the next three years.

The average 330ml can contains about eight teaspoons of sugar.

The Government believed a "prohibitionist" approach would not work, as a total ban risked alienating children and turning fizzy drinks into a "forbidden fruit", he said.

Mr Hodgson thanked the companies for their "leadership" and said the agreement was a world first.

Yet earlier this year, Mr Hodgson warned the industry he'd regulate to remove the products if the industry failed to copy their United States' counterparts, who agreed to a voluntary ban in May.

At the time, Coca-Cola Amatil, which pulled similar products out of New Zealand primary schools in 2003, said it had no plans to follow suit.

The US deal was brokered by former President Bill Clinton, but did not involve the Government, enabling Mr Hodgson to call it a world first.

Coca-Cola Amatil managing director George Adams said there was "no silver bullet" to obesity, but the industry wanted to "do its bit".

The decision would have a multimillion-dollar impact on the company, but he could not give specific costs.

He hoped the debate would now shift towards areas which had a much greater impact on obesity, including education about healthy eating and personal responsibility.

Frucor Beverages chief executive Carl Bergstrom said soft drinks only accounted for about 2 per cent of the energy intake of children.

It was important that children who were not physically active were encouraged to choose alternative drinks.

Green MP Sue Kedgley said children would continue to be exposed to "nutritionless, enamel-destroying soft drinks with addictive and controversial additives in them".

The so-called agreement was a public relations move, designed to enable the companies to keep selling their products in school vending machines, she said.

"I am deeply disappointed that the Health Minister has not followed his British and French counterparts and required that all soft drinks are removed from schools - not just sugar-filled ones."

Diet drinks might also contain additives like aspartame "which has been linked to cancer in animals", she said.

Mr Bergstrom said there was no more caffeine in diet soft drink than there was in a cup of tea.

He dismissed the aspartame claim, saying it was approved by the World Health Organisation.

Mr Hodgson said the Government would next year unveil a set of non-compulsory guidelines informing schools what food and drinks should or should not be sold.

He said no decisions had been made on how diet soft drinks and fruit juices should be rated, but water and low-fat milk would be rated as the beverages of choice.

The Government is thinking of using a "traffic light" ratings system for the guidelines.

Asked how Coca-Cola Amatil would feel if its diet drinks got a "red light", Mr Adams said: "We would be reasonably unhappy."