High Street coffee chains selling festive drinks which contain up to 23 spoons of sugar

The Action on Sugar Group found "excessive" levels of sugar in many seasonal lattes and hot chocolates
Ben Morgan3 December 2019

High Street coffee chains are selling festive hot drinks which contain up to 23 spoonfuls of sugar, a study has found.

The Action on Sugar group has published a study comparing the sugar content of around 200 Christmas hot drinks.

It found "excessive" levels of sugar in many of the seasonal lattes and hot chocolates that use milk substitutes such as oat milk which are rising in popularity.

In the study of nine high street chains the campaigners found some drinks contain the same sugar content as three cans of Coca Cola.

The largest sized signature caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks made with oat milk and whipped cream had the highest sugar content with 93.7g and 758 calories.

That is the equivalent of 23 teaspoons of sugar - or as much as four white chocolate and strawberry muffins.

The next highest was Caffe Nero's Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate with skimmed milk which contains 15 teaspoons of sugar and 503 calories.

The Starbucks venti-sized Gingerbread Latte made with oat milk was highest of the seasonal coffees with 56.6g of sugar.

That equates to 14 teaspoons and 523 calories and is roughly equivalent to eating 17 custard cream biscuits.

Action on Sugar, based at Queen Mary University, warned some customers are unknowingly buying sugary products when choosing the "healthy" option by opting for milk substitutes.

Katharine Jenner, Campaign Director at Action on Sugar said: "The hospitality industry has a key role to play in being transparent to help reduce the amount of sugar we consume, which is one of the biggest causes of obesity, Type 2 Diabetes and tooth decay.

"Companies must improve the flow of healthy options bought by always displaying clear nutrition information at the point of sale.”

In 2016 the government introduced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) where fizzy drink makers paid a levy to HM Treasury.

Milk-based drinks were exempt from the law but both Labour and Liberal Democrats have announced plans to extend the current tax.

In May 2018 a government paper said there was an aim to reduce sugar content in milk-based drinks by a fifth by the middle of 2021.

A Starbucks spokeswoman said: "We are committed to reducing sugar in all our beverages and since 2015 we've delivered a 9% reduction in the sugar content of our gingerbread and core syrup range of vanilla, caramel and hazelnut."

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