Pharmacist Stops Selling Soda and Whole Community Benefits

Long time readers here might recall this guest post from the small town of Baddeck, Nova Scotia pharmacist Graham MacKenzie. In it he details his experiences in the week following his decision to stop selling soda in his store.

At the time, I think everyone's expectation was that his decision was primarily symbolic and that any decrease in his store's sales would be made up for in the town's supermarket and convenience store.

But it wasn't, at least not according to Professor Leia Minaker who analyzed the supermarket and convenience stores to study MacKenzie's ban's impact on their soda sales.

According to this CBC piece, supermarket and convenience store soda sales dropped between 11 and 21 percent in the 8 months following the ban, which Minaker says would amount to Baddeck drinking 350 fewer litres of soda a week!

The butterfly effect? Can't help but wonder whether or not we would see similar unexpected effects were other trusted community institutions (schools, arenas, hospitals, etc.) to follow suit.