Using supermarket loyalty card data to measure the differential impact of the UK soft drink sugar tax on buyer behaviour

Fearne, Andrew, Borzino, Natalia, De La Iglesia, Beatriz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2675-5826, Moffatt, Peter and Robbins, Margaret (2022) Using supermarket loyalty card data to measure the differential impact of the UK soft drink sugar tax on buyer behaviour. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 73 (2). pp. 321-337. ISSN 0021-857X

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Abstract

This paper explores the impact of the soft drinks sugar tax introduced in the UK in 2018 on the purchasing behaviours of different geo-demographic consumer segments. We analyse data for a composite good comprising the most popular sugar-sweetened drinks (SSDs) using loyalty card data from one of the UK’s largest supermarkets. We use pre-levy data to predict the effect of the tax and corroborate our predictions by analysing actual consumption of the composite good in the first 5 months post-levy. The results show that the impact of the sugar tax is likely to have the desired effect of reducing the purchase of SSDs. Moreover, though the impact of the tax is likely to vary across different geo-demographic segments, the evidence suggests that its impact is likely to be greatest on the most vulnerable market segments – families on low incomes – who are among the highest consumers of SSDs in the UK.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: uk,geo-demographic segmentation,sugar tax,supermarket loyalty card data,agricultural and biological sciences (miscellaneous),economics and econometrics ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1101
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School
Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
Faculty of Science > School of Computing Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Norwich Institute for Healthy Aging
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Innovation, Technology and Operations Management
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Business and Local Government Data Research Centre (former - to 2023)
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Data Science and Statistics
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 09 Oct 2021 01:04
Last Modified: 11 Nov 2023 01:38
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/81634
DOI: 10.1111/1477-9552.12462

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