The Danish tax on saturated fat - demand effects for meat and dairy products

Denmark introduced a tax on saturated fat in food products with effect from October 2011. This paper makes an effect assessment of this tax for some product categories affected by the new tax: meats and dairy products. This assessment is done by conducting an econometric analysis on monthly food retail sales data from a major retail chain in Denmark (Coop Danmark), spanning the period from January 2010 until October 2012.The econometric analysis suggests that the introduction of the tax on saturated fat led to a decrease in the intake of saturated fat from cream products, but not from minced beef.