Healthy food and drinks have risen more in price than unhealthy food in the past ten years. This is according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. It means that it has become comparatively more expensive to eat healthy.
Healthy products such as vegetables, fruit and low-fat or semi-skimmed dairy had to be paid on average 21 percent more last year than in 2010. Smoked, salted or dried meat, sauces and snacks became on average 15 percent more expensive. It is striking that sweets and ice cream have even become cheaper.
The development leads to concerns at the Nutrition Center, known for, among other things, the Wheel of Five. “About half of the adult Dutch population is overweight. Many people would benefit from eating healthier,” says Liesbeth Velema. “If products from the Wheel of Five become relatively more expensive, that is more difficult.”
In addition to taste and convenience, the price is an important factor in the choice of which product to buy. The Nutrition Center advises people with a small budget to look at uncut vegetables, frozen vegetables and fruit and products at the bottom of the shelves.
Sugar tax and lower VAT
One bright spot, according to the Nutrition Center, is that the price of unhealthy products has risen slightly faster than that of healthy products in the past two years, but that does not mean that there has been a turnaround. Statistics Netherlands saw the same in 2012 and 2014. The Nutrition Center thinks that the sharply increased sugar price may play a role. The sugar price could also fall again.
According to the Netherlands Nutrition Centre, government measures are therefore necessary to enable consumers to make healthier choices. “It would be nice if the healthy choice became the easy choice,” says Velema. “That could be done, among other things, by introducing a sugar tax and reducing or reducing the VAT on fruit and vegetables.”
Also the Council for Health and Society advised the cabinet last month to introduce a tax on sugar. In Norway, France and the United Kingdom, the sale of sugary drinks decreased after the introduction of such a sugar tax. In the UK, manufacturers are now also putting less sugar in soft drinks. This is attractive because drinks with the most sugar are most heavily taxed there.
Not in the Netherlands
But a sugar tax is not part of the 2018 closed National Prevention Agreement. This agreement was concluded with about seventy social organizations and companies and is intended, among other things, to combat obesity. It has been agreed in the agreement that manufacturers will gradually put less sugar in their products.
RIVM believes that the voluntarily agreed measures are not sufficient to achieve the ambitions of the Prevention Agreement. At the request of the ministry, the institute investigated which additional measures could work and published there are ten. This publication also includes a sugar tax and lower VAT on healthy products.
The Nutrition Center supports these ten measures, says Velema. According to her, this is about more than just the price. “You want measures that increase the share of healthy and less advertising for unhealthy. There is a lot on offer and you are constantly tempted by advertising or offers.”
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