Provide subsidies to fast-food outlets
Published:Tuesday | February 10, 2026 | 12:06 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
Fast food is fun food and such foods are relatively inexpensive, convenient and tasty. Minister Tufton, try as he may, will never succeed in getting fast food foodies to, over the medium and long terms, opt for healthier alternatives.
As such, while Minister Tufton, rightly urges drinks manufacturers to lessen the sugar content in their drinks and fast food restaurants to use healthier oils in cooking their meals is a good thing. That approach alone will fail, and that too miserably. If Minister Tufton and the Ministry of Health wants the aforementioned to comply with their wishes, the government will have to be willing to put its money where its mouth is.
For fast food enterprises to agree to use oils that are trans fat free, and for commercial drinks manufacturers to lessen the sugar content in their products, the government must first and foremost agree to subsidise those entities. Using healthier alternatives will result in increased costs for fast food and drinks manufacturing entities, at the buying raw materials stage. Those entities will not be willing to pay those additional costs, especially given the currently high cost of electricity and the not too long ago increase to the minimum wage. Additionally, those increased costs will lead to an increase in costs of the end product to consumers, which, will diminish demand for those goods.
Unless the government is willing to provide subsidies in significant levels to the local fast food and drinks manufacturing industries the situation will remain the same. Once there is incentive and subsidy, it will result in healthier products being offered to and bought by Jamaican consumers. As the saying goes, ‘It takes cash to care’.
PATRICK GALLIMORE