Coca-Cola Products Pulled from Czech School Vending Machines

An EU-wide initiative is seeing manufacturers of sugary beverages voluntarily pulling their products from schools

Expats.cz Staff Jason Pirodsky

Written by Expats.cz StaffJason Pirodsky Published on 19.09.2018 08:00:29 (updated on 19.09.2018) Reading time: 1 minute

The Coca-Cola company will no longer offer sweet drinks, including Coke, Fanta, Sprite, or iced tea at secondary schools in the Czech Republic, reports iDnes.cz.

The change affects 400 secondary schools in the Czech Republic which offer sweetened, carbonated, and energy drinks in vending machines. Only non-calorie drinks and beverages with no added sugar will be available to students.

The move goes hand-in-hand with a new pledge by the European organization of carbonated drink manufacturers (UNESDA), which maintains a commitment to responsibly marketing soft drinks to children and adolescents.

The new policy expands on an existing one, first introduced in 2006, to not sell any sugary beverages in primary schools.

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Coca-Cola aims to achieve another UNESDA commitment in the coming years; a reduction of sugar in its carbonated drink portfolio by 10 percent by the year 2020.

The company will also be removing its ads and logos from school-based machines this month.

The soft-drinks giant also aims to meet another UNESDA commitment, which is the average reduction of sugar in its carbonated drinks portfolio by 10 percent by 2020.

The initiative, a voluntary effort expected to reach more than 50,000 schools and over 40 million young people across the European Union, is an effort to contribute to the prevention of obesity across the EU.

Newly released data from the World Health Organization ranks the Czech Republic as the seventh most obese nation in Europe with 26% of the population meeting the definition of obesity.

In 2017, France launched a controversial school vending machine ban.

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