Dive Brief:
- The American Beverage Association is pushing a $9.5 million "Don't Tax Our Groceries" campaign in the San Francisco Bay area, despite there being no grocery tax on the ballot, according to NPR.
- Critics claim that the ABA is intentionally misrepresenting the soda tax by running ads that depict images of vegetables and locally-owned groceries instead of beverages.
- "This is just a mirage by the soda industry to try to hide the fact that this is a targeted tax on sugar-sweetened beverages," Dr. Michael Siegel of Boston University School of Public Health told NPR.
Dive Insight:
Though the ABA's campaign platform is technically true, it's also wildly misleading. It's more likely that the beverage industry is simply trying to undermine measures on sugary drinks to avoid profit loss.
Soda tax initiatives have been growing since the success of Philadelphia's tax on sweet beverages in January, which the ABA also lobbied — and ultimately lost — against after throwing $10.6 million into its campaign. The World Health Organization's recent endorsement of taxes on sugary beverages could be an even greater catalyst for restrictive measures on the beverage category.
Instead of an arguably deceptive strategy, the ABA could have instead focused on potential problems with how officials could spend dedicated funds, or promising to use more sugary beverage revenue on further research on the effects drinks have on consumer health.