Soft Drinks Industry Levy - 6th April 2018

On the 6^th April 2018 the new soft drinks industry levy will take effect.

Drinks which will be effected include drinks which meet the following conditions:

• it has a content of 1.2% alcohol by volume or less
• it’s either ready to drink, or to be drunk it must be diluted with water, mixed with crushed ice or processed to make crushed ice, mixed with carbon dioxide or a combination of these
• it’s packaged ready for sale
• it has had sugar added during production, including pure cane sugars like sucrose and glucose as well as substances (other than fruit juice, vegetable juice and milk) that contain sugar, such as honey
• it contains at least 5 grams (g) of sugar per 100 millilitres (ml) in its ready to drink or diluted form

The following are drinks exempt which:

•  contains at least 75% milk
• are a milk-substitute which contains at least 120 milligrams of calcium per 100ml, for example soya or almond milk
• are an alcohol replacement drink, for example de-alcoholised beer or wine
• are infant formula, follow-on formula, baby foods, formulated food intended as a total diet replacement or dietary food used for special medical purposes

Although some obvious drinks such as Coke and Sprite will be effected (with approximately 6.6g per 100ml) less obvious examples such as some tonic waters will be caught also.

The applicable rate depends upon the amount of sugar in the product:

• 18p per litre if the drink has 5g of sugar or more per 100ml
• 24p per litre if the drink has 8g of sugar or more per 100ml

A 330ml can of Coke would therefore face a levy of approximately 6p per can.

Money raised by the levy, estimated to be over £500m, will be used to fund sports in primary schools.