Ending the sale of energy drinks to children and young people: consultation

There is plenty of evidence available, via studies conducted, to suggest that excessive caffeine consumption by young people is detrimental to their health.

It would be acceptable to provide an exemption to energy drinks sales in cafes and vending machines situated in workplaces where the workforce was all over 16 years of age.

It would also be prudent to ensure that these drinks are not available for sale in vending machines in areas where children are known to frequent, in particular leisure centres and shopping malls as it is impossible to control who was purchasing the products.

With regard to online sales as there are already precedents for online age restrictions relating to alcohol and tobacco these could be replicated in relation to the sale of energy drinks to young people.

There would be resource implications if this were to be added to the remit of Environmental Health or Trading Standards staff. The premises selling these products are generally regarded as lower risk and therefore are subject to infrequent food hygiene inspections. There is a possibility that enforcement and monitoring could be addressed by Licensing Standards Officers who visit retailers who would sell these products regularly. Alternatively there may be some scope to address this issue in parallel with underage sales of tobacco.

Evaluation will depend on the final policy that is implemented and the offences created by that policy. If the policy extends further than the sale of product and also relates to the provision of product in certain locations these are two very different issues to address.
I would suggest that one of the best ways of evaluating the success of this policy in relation to the sale of product to young people would be through test purchasing as is currently done in relation to the underage sale of tobacco.

Potentially this might have a significant impact on businesses especially those that are based adjacent to schools and educational establishments and currently sell large quantities of these products to children under the age of 16.

Hopefully introducing age restrictions to the sale of energy drinks to young people will reduce the associated health risks. There are currently warning labels on these products but these are ignored by young people who continue to consume these drinks. By introducing this policy the health and wellbeing of children should be improved across the board no matter what socio economic group they belong to.