UK sugar tax comes into force

Taxes on soft-drinks and sugar have come into force on Friday.

The government hopes the measures, which are part of its "anti-obesity" campaign, will reduce Britons' consumption of sugar, especially among youths.

From Friday, soft-drink manufacturers will be forced to pay a levy on the high-sugar drinks they sell, to the tune of an extra 24p per litre for beverages with more than 8g of sugar per 100ml .

Drinks containing 5-8g of sugar per 100ml face a tax rate of 18p per litre.

Pure fruit juices will be exempt as they do not have additional sugar in their recipes, those with milk content will also be excluded due to the large amount of calcium in the beverage.

Westminster believes it will succeed, with some companies having already reduced the amount of sugar in their beverages before the measure was implemented. Irn Bru, Ribena and Lucozade are among those that have reduced the sugar content in their recipes, although Pepsi and Coca-Cola had decided to keep theirs the same.

In total, HM Treasury was forecasting the new measures would generate £240m of additional revenues each year, which lawmakers said would go into funding school sports and improving meals.

Improving youth nutrition was a priority since teenagers consume worryingly vast amounts of sugary drinks, with the measure expected to have an effect on 47% and 53% of 16-34 year olds.

As Public Health Minister Steve Brine put it: "Our teenagers consume nearly a bathtub of sugary drinks each year on average, fuelling a worrying obesity trend."