Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> However, HFCS make up ~3.5% of the cost of a soft drink, and the cost of corn is less than half the total cost of making HFCS, which means the total impact of corn subsidies on the price of a soft drink is a couple of pennies.

The actual cost of manufacturing a soft drink is in the order of pennies - [0] does a breakdown where the numbers are likely wrong but in the right ballpark. An increase of a few c per litre in tax at the production level would have a huge knock on effect on the price of the drinks, unless the manufacturers eat the increases.

Customers are also hugely price sensitive, an increase of a few pence can have a massive change on purchasing patterns.

[0] https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-manufacture-3...

>Customers are also hugely price sensitive, an increase of a few pence can have a massive change on purchasing patterns.

Looking at one weekly special[1] I see Pepsi selling four 12-packs for $12. I would be shocked if customers taking advantage of that deal would balk at it being $13, for example. That would still be only $0.27 per can.

[1] https://shop.shoprite.com/store/e65b663/weekly-specials/848

Apart from the fact that prices are obscene - the real meat is in what happens if there' a coke and a pepsi side by side, one is $12 for a pack but the other is $13 - which do they buy?

The price difference is $0.02 per can, (which is potentially the difference a sugar tax might make), it would certainly be enough to sway a large number of people to choose the cheaper option.

Not sure about the regularity of these deals, but I remember as a studen often going to a place with a €4 meal deal. One week we went along, and the price of the deal had been increased to €4.50, and even though their competitors had been selling at that price (or higher) for quite a while before that, the people who defaulted to there for lunch stopped going purely based on a tiny price increase.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com