The British food industry has failed to meet a voluntary goal of reducing sugar in its products by 20%, leading some critics to call for more stringent measures.

Public Health England, which made the 20% recommendation in 2016, recently released a report saying that the nation’s food industry has achieved only about a 3% reduction in sugar. It suggested that coercive measures like taxes might be necessary.

The one area wher sugar reduction has been successful in the UK is in soft drinks, which collectively have 44% less sugar now than they did in 2015. A major motivation was a tax on sugar in soft drinks, imposed in 2018, that maxes out at 24 pence (31 cents U.S.) per liter on drinks with more than 8g of sugar per 100ml.

Consumer health advocates in the UK point to the disparity between food and soft drinks as evidence that a voluntary approach doesn’t work. However, obstacles to a tougher approach include the reluctance of Britain’s Conservative Party government to impose taxes on business, and the difficulty involved in removing sugar from formulations for certain products like baked goods.