There is a sugar tax in Ireland. It means that drinks with sugar would cost more for the consumer. There are good reasons to have sugar tax, one of them is to reduce the risk of diabetes in the country. Malaysia also have sugar tax introduced recently. Malaysia is ranked top in Asia for diabetes and having the sugar tax was supposed to control the health risk.

Before coming to Malaysia, I never noticed the price difference between drinks with sugar and artificial sweetener. Since coming to Ireland, we noticed that most restaurants and face food chain serve mainly drinks with artificial sweetener. Going to fast food franchise, they normally serve coke zero or diet coke.

When we were back in Malaysia for the summer holidays, we had a reverse culture shock. We hardly can find the version of drinks with artificial sweetener in restaurants. I remembered trying to order Coke Zero from Mcdonalds and they didn’t have it.

Ireland Sugar Tax

This is an example of the impact of sugar tax in Ireland. Supermarkets try to keep the price the same for both type of drinks. At Dunnes near Christmas, they are selling 3 bottles of Coke for 5 euros. However Coke Zeroes are sold in 2 Litre bottles while original Coke is sold in 1.5 litres. Both are sold at the same price. This means you are getting 25% less drinks for the same price.