Like many within the beverage industry, I have been keeping a watchful eye on the proliferation of taxes placed on sweetened beverages. However, my time of watching it from afar ended last month when Cook County, Illinois, enacted its penny-per-ounce tax on beverages sweetened with nutritive and non-nutritive sweetening solutions.
Although I live in a neighboring county, I see how this tax is impacting the retailers and shoppers in Cook County (let alone the areas that already have enacted their own sweetened beverage tax laws).