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

[thumbnail of Accepted_Manuscript] PDF (Accepted_Manuscript) - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only until 10 November 2023.

Request a copy
[thumbnail of FearneetalAppendix (Final)] Microsoft Word (OpenXML) (FearneetalAppendix (Final)) - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only until 10 November 2023.

Request a copy

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
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 09 Oct 2021 01:04
Last Modified: 20 Apr 2023 22:37
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/81634
DOI: 10.1111/1477-9552.12462

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item