Some hopes for more information on the labels of alcoholic drinks?
Eurocare believes that this is the consumer's right to know what is in their drink and over the last few months we have been advocating for inclusion of alcohol in the Provision of Food Information to Consumers legislation. Unfortunately, currently alcohol is exempted from requirement to list its ingredients (kcal, sugar etc.)
Executive vice- president for Diageo in North America (Guy Smith) appears to be sharing the same viewpoint: ‘ In the year 2011, it's sort of bizarre that alcohol's the only consumable product sold in the United States that you can't tell what's inside the bottle'[1] Diageo is the world leading distilled spirits, beer and wine company, it can be hoped that the shift in attitudes towards labelling of alcoholic beverages in the US will be ruled out for all markets of this global business.
Comprehensive alcohol labelling should also include health warning messages, as consumers should be informed about the dangers and health risks associated with alcohol consumption.
It is with great interest that we have been observing moves around the world to introduce health warning messages on alcoholic beverages. Back in November 2010 Eurocare has supported Thailand and called on EU representatives in the World Trade Organisation (Technical Barriers to Trade Committee) to allow Thailand to introduce health warnings.(Please click here to view the press release)
Recently, Australia's second largest brewer (Kirin Holdings) supported calls for alcoholic drinks labels to carry health warnings. This development follows the Blewett Review, commissioned by the Australian and New Zealand governments, which contains around 60 recommendations on labelling for food and drink.
Similarly, SABMiller the world's second largest brewer made a commitment that by December 2011, it will put responsible drinking message on the packaging labels of their products and marketing materials.
SABMiller has submitted this also as a commitment in the framework of the EU Alcohol and Health Forum as it ' strongly believes that people should receive accurate and balanced information to help them make a choice'.[2]
It remains to be seen if the alcohol industry in the EU will follow suit and improve labelling of their products.
[1]http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2011-01-23-alcohol-labels_N.htm?POE=click-refer
[2]http://ec.europa.eu/health/alcohol/docs/alcohol_lib29_en.pdf