SAINSBURY'S has sparked outrage after ditching regular Coke bottles from its meal deals.

SAINSBURY'S has sparked outrage after ditching regular Coke bottles from its meal deals.

The decision to drop the drink from the £3 deals has been blamed on price rises following the new sugar tax.

Supermarket bosses said 500ml bottles of Diet Coke and Coke Zero Sugar would still be included in meal deals.

Shopped have since argued Sainsbury's should have put the price of meal deals up instead of taking the drink out of the deal.

Some said it inconvenienced people who don't want to drink Coke made with sweeteners instead of sugar.

On Twitter, Gary Waites said: "The issue is that I don't want Coke Zero not diet, due to the chemical artificial sweeteners, there is no freedom of choice because of the #sugartax which means lost revenue to @sainsburys as I will go elsewhere for my lunch."

Customer Nynaeve2k tweeted: "I'm allergic to sweeteners. They cause me horrendous, debilitating migraines. I wouldn't mind paying 50p more for the meal deal for a full fat Coke but as it stands, the same food costs around £2 more."

A spokesman for the retailer tweeted that, following the introduction of the sugar tax, the price of Coca-Cola had risen.

The spokesman told The Grocer magazine it was "unable to offer it as part of our meal deal."

She said customers could still buy a 250ml can of Classic Coke, sandwich and snack for under £3, less than the price of a meal deal.

Similar anger was aimed at Tesco's move to offer 375ml bottles of Classic Coke with its £3 meal deals earlier this month.

The UK's biggest supermarket swapped the usual 500ml bottles of Coca-Cola and Pepsi for smaller 375ml ones.

It downsized from the 500ml bottles it had previously offered without changing the promotion price.

The supermarket has made the swap due to the new sugar tax, which means drink firms must pay a tax to the government depending on how sugary their drinks are.

As a result some manufactures have changed their recipes to include less sugar.

More than half of all soft drinks have been changed to lower their sugar content, as the government introduces a new sugar tax to help tackle the UK’s growing obesity crisis.

Under the new rules which come in today, drinks with at least 8g of sugar per 100ml will cost 24p a litre more, falling to 18p for those with 5g to 8g per 100ml.

A spokesman for Coca-Cola Enterprises said pricing was at the discretion of retailers.

He said: "The government, policymakers and health experts have made it clear that they expect to see a price difference between products that contain sugar and those that have a low or zero sugar content."