EU to Provide Daily Sugar Intake Advice

The advice will aim to establish a science-based cut-off value for daily exposure to added sugars from all sources.

These include: Sucrose, Fructose, glucose, starch hydrolysates, such as glucose syrup, high-fructose syrup, and other sugar preparations consumed in this form or added during food preparation and manufacturing.

Adverse health effects under consideration will include body weight, glucose intolerance and insulin sensitivity, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular risk factors, and tooth decay.

European Food Safety Authority assessment

In its assessment, the European Food Safety Authority will look at the general healthy population, including children, adolescents, adults and the elderly.

It will hold two public consultations, inviting feedback on the draft protocol in the first half of 2018 and on the draft opinion in late 2019, which will also involve a face-to-face meeting with stakeholders.

The work will be carried out following a request from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Public Health England report

In a report published at the end of March, Public Health England challenged the UK food industry to reduce sugar content by 5% by August 2017, and 20% by 2020.

The report – Sugar Reduction: Achieving the 20% – set recommended sugar limit guidelines for nine food groups, including biscuits, breakfast cereals and yogurt.

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