The sugar tax did not move at the mini-budget

The Health Promotion Levy was argued about loudly in the run-up to the 21 October medium-term budget, and then nothing happened to it. Finance Minister Godongwana's statement covered fuel-levy reductions and revised growth figures. There was no reported change to the levy.

That is less of an anticlimax than it looks. Tax changes are not normally announced at the MTBPS stage. The next real decision point is the February 2027 Budget.

Where the levy actually sits

2.21c per gram of sugar above 4g per 100ml. That has been the shape of it for some time, and both ends of the argument want it changed.

The Healthy Living Alliance wants it raised to 20% of retail price, in line with a WHO recommendation — a very different instrument from a per-gram charge, because it scales with price rather than with sugar.

SA Canegrowers wants it scrapped, arguing it pushes beverage makers away from locally produced sugar. That is a domestic-industry argument rather than a health one, and it is the reason this is never purely a nutrition debate.

A study reported on 6 October found community voices were left out of Nedlac's levy discussions, which raises its own questions about transparency and how much of the process industry occupies.

Why the rate matters less than people think

For anyone making a sweetened product, the levy's existence has already done most of its work. A per-gram charge above a threshold is a standing incentive to sit under that threshold, and companies that were going to reformulate largely started years ago.

What makes this period different is that it is no longer the only pressure. Draft R3337 would put a front-of-pack warning on products high in sugar. The levy taxes the gram; the label advertises it. They are separate instruments pointing at the same gram, on separate timetables, and a reformulation programme aimed at only one of them is only half-aimed.

A quiet window

Headline CPI rose to 4.5% in September from 4.4% in August, with fuel the main driver. But food inflation has been unusually low: 0.9% in July, the lowest in more than sixteen years, and 1.1% in August — its first increase since November 2025.

Reformulation costs money, and it is easier to absorb when input costs are not also climbing. If a sugar-reduction project has been sitting on a list waiting for a calm quarter, this is closer to one than the last few years have offered.

Reporting: Daily Maverick · Engineering News · SABC · SAnews