Experts urge Labour to sweeten policy

Jamie Oliver applauds Labour's plan for healthy food at schools.

Tax on fizzy drinks would be easier if shown to be workable.

Nutrition experts say Labour's policy to reduce sugar in foods is a good move, but a sugar tax on fizzy drinks is an essential step.

Labour's health spokeswoman, Annette King, set out the sugar policy at the party's conference over the weekend. It includes requiring manufacturers to reduce sugar in processed food and to put labels with the number of teaspoons of sugar on front of the product. A requirement for schools to sell only healthy food was also back on the table after National scrapped the measure in 2009.

That got approval from UK chef Jamie Oliver, who commented on the policy on Facebook saying "Go Go New Zealand, this would be great for public health if it happened. Clarity and honesty, that's the way forward."

Sally Hughes, public health strategic adviser for the Heart Foundation, said one thing missing was a tax on soft drinks. While she did not believe a broad-sweeping sugar tax was workable, it was easy to apply to soft drinks.

That was backed by Nutrition Foundation dietitian Sarah Hanrahan, who said a sugar tax on soft drinks would happen eventually as evidence came in from countries such as Mexico that it worked.

Mrs King has ruled out a broad sugar tax, saying it was too complex. She said fizzy drinks would not be covered under the sugar reduction policy for food, however she did not say whether Labour was considering further policy for them.

Ms Hanrahan and Ms Hughes were also keen on Labour's plan to bring back a requirement for healthy food in school tuck shops. Ms Hanrahan said bad food had sneaked back into many schools.

"The fact kids can be taught one thing in the classroom and then walk to the tuck shop just metres away and be faced with quite a different selection of food sends all the wrong messages."

She said many companies were already reducing sugar so their products qualified for good Health Star ratings, such as breakfast cereals.

"Steps are already being taken and I think in a year or two there will be much better evidence to see if it needs to be mandatory."

Measures such as labelling will add costs to business and Mrs King is yet to work out the full details, but said businesses already had to meet labelling requirements to sell in NZ.

The Food and Grocery Council is not commenting until it has spoken to Labour about the policy.

National has already questioned whether the policy to reduce sugar is workable after Mrs King said "treat" products such as lollies, chocolate and icecream would be exempt. She said it was aimed at everyday foods such as cereal, yoghurt and bread.

A spoonful of sugar
Teaspoons of sugar per 100 grams:
0.7 Weet-Bix
5.25 Vogel's cafe-style light cereal
6 Honeypuffs
2.8 Marmite
1.2 Sanitarium crunchy peanut butter
2.5 Fresh and Fruity Simply Strawberry yoghurt
Sourced from companies' nutritional information. One teaspoon is 4 grams of sugar.