Irish sugar tax won't help the fight against obesity levels and will hit cross-border trade with Northern Ireland, reports Independent.ie
In response to the Governments’ proposed tax bill that will be implemented in April 2017, Aoife Nagle, Marketing Manager, Coca-Cola Ireland said: “The international evidence suggests that taxes don't work, and repeated studies rank taxation as one of the least effective interventions. There are also local factors to consider - such as here in Ireland the introduction of a soft drinks tax would undoubtedly impact on cross-border trade with Northern Ireland."
She also stresses how the company is evolving to meet changing habits and the planned sugar tax introduction next year. According to Nagle: “In the past 10 years we have launched 17 new drinks with reduced sugar and calories and all of our major brands now have a no-sugar, no-calorie variant. Around 40% of everything that we sell in Ireland is now a low or no-calorie beverage. Our commitment, through increased marketing spend, is to increase that to 50% by 2020."
Coca-Cola has hundreds of employees in Ireland alone. She explains, "The Coca-Cola Company and its bottling partner, Coca-Cola Hellenic, together employ more than 1,700 people on the island of Ireland.
"In total, we have 20 brands and 49 different products that are sold in thousands of retail outlets. These products range from the four Coca-Cola variants - Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Life - right through to Sprite, Powerade, Oasis, Schweppes, Fruice and Deep RiverRock. Around 97% of everything that we sell across the island of Ireland is manufactured locally."
Coca-Cola is the world’s leading soft drinks manufacturer with more than 700,000 employees and 500 brands globally.
© 2016 - Checkout Magazine by Donna Ahern
