Berkeley Banned Candy and Soda From Checkout Lines. Only One Sold Less.

Soda Sales Dropped 40% After Berkeley’s Checkout Ban. Candy Wouldn’t Budge.

Soda sales in Berkeley stores fell by nearly 40% after the city’s checkout ban became legally enforceable, according to new sales data. Candy told a different story. Overall candy sales rose right after the rule took effect, then leveled off once enforcement began, even though the same law barred candy from checkout displays right alongside soda.

Berkeley made history in 2021 by becoming the first place in the world to require large stores to keep sugary sodas and candy away from checkout lanes, the spot where a tired shopper with a restless child in tow used to face a wall of candy bars and cold drinks at eye level. A new study published in The Lancet Public Health tracked years of point-of-sale records from stores in Berkeley and nearby cities to see what happened after the ban took hold. The soda category tracked in the study included both sugar-sweetened drinks and those made with non-sugar sweeteners.

That distinction matters, because other places have already copied Berkeley’s approach, including the city of Perris, California, and unincorporated Contra Costa County. England and Wales already restrict less healthy checkout items more broadly, and similar rules take effect in Scotland this October. If a strict law like Berkeley’s could not move overall candy purchases, that carries a lesson for other governments hoping a checkout rule alone will meaningfully cut sugar purchases.

Researchers Compared Berkeley Sales Against Three Other Cities

Instead of surveying shoppers about their intentions, researchers went straight to actual point-of-sale records from Circana, a company that collects real sales data from retailers. They pulled records from 71 stores across four California cities, covering March 2019 through the end of 2023. Only 11 of those stores were in Berkeley itself, three supermarkets, six drugstores, and two mass merchandisers, while the other 60 stores in Davis, Oakland, and Sacramento served as a comparison group. Researchers only included chains that also operated in Berkeley, a choice meant to keep the comparison as apples-to-apples as possible. All told, the analysis covered more than 9 million monthly product records for soda and over 52 million for candy.

To estimate whether the law itself was linked to any changes, rather than sales rising or falling for unrelated reasons, the team compared sales trends in Berkeley against the comparison cities over the same stretch of time. If Berkeley’s numbers moved differently right around when the law kicked in, researchers treated that gap as evidence connected to the policy, a method that shows association, not conclusive proof of cause and effect.

Soda Sales Fell Sharply While Candy Sales Held Steady

Soda was the clear standout. After the ordinance became enforceable in 2022, researchers estimated Berkeley stores sold about 3,891 fewer liters of soda per store each quarter than expected. Supermarkets showed the steepest gap, with sales down more than 66%, though that figure comes from just three Berkeley supermarkets, a small sample the study’s authors flagged as a limitation. Large bottles and multi-packs drove most of the decline, while small, single-serve sodas barely moved, a pattern the researchers themselves called somewhat unexpected since checkout bans would be expected to hit small, impulse-sized items hardest.

Candy did not follow suit. Across all stores, candy sales rose by about 220 kilograms per store each quarter right after the law passed, then stayed roughly flat rather than declining once enforcement began. In supermarkets specifically, small candy packages, the kind most likely to sit in a checkout bin, fell by roughly 35% after the rule started and by more than 43% after enforcement. Larger candy packages sold elsewhere in the store showed no such drop, hinting that some shoppers may have simply picked up candy from another aisle instead of skipping it. Because the sales data does not show exactly where in a store an item was purchased, researchers could describe this relocation pattern as a plausible explanation, not a confirmed one.

Drugstores told a different story again, with no clear declines in either soda or candy, which lines up with a prior audit finding lower compliance with the checkout rules at drugstores generally. Researchers also checked whether shoppers swapped candy and soda for permitted alternatives like bottled water, nuts, and seeds, since those items are allowed at Berkeley checkouts under the law. Sales of nuts and seeds did rise somewhat after the rule passed, a sign some stores may have simply swapped candy displays for healthier snacks. Bottled water sales showed no clear pattern either way.

Checkout Bans Alone May Not Cut Overall Candy Purchases

Getting sugary drinks out of a shopper’s line of sight worked, at least for soda. Candy is the reminder that removing a product from checkout does not stop people from buying it somewhere else in the same store. As other cities and countries adopt similar rules, enforcement strength and whether a law covers just the checkout lane or the whole store may matter as much as the policy itself.

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Disclaimer: This article summarizes findings from a peer-reviewed study and is intended for general informational purposes. It is not medical, nutritional, or policy advice.

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