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The Danish Agriculture & Food Council has the following comments to the saturated fat levy:
- The levy will harm the dairy sector without benefiting public health.
- The levy will be introduced at a time when other EU member states choose to support dairies and milk producers.
- The levy is socially imbalanced; families with children and the 300,000-400,000 elderly people with no appetite who should not be eating low-fat food, will be financially hard hit by the levy.
- The levy will result in a price difference of up to 50 % in relation to cross-border shopping - in other words: the levy benefits cross-border trading.
- It is not logical that cheese and butter, which contain 12 out of 19 essential nutrients, are subjected to a tax and thereby ranked alongside with proven harmful stimulants like alcohol and tobacco.
- Over the last 10 years Danish dairies have on a voluntary basis removed 5,000 tonnes of milk fat from products. Through product development and innovation dairies create and encourage a low-fat choice - we believe that in conjunction with good guidance to the public this has a much larger effect than levies. As an example it can be mentioned that 50 % of the liquid milk consumption in Denmark today is skim milk.
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