When you’re in the supermarket, how do you like to find ingredients or nutritional information? Searching for a QR code on your food product, taking out your mobile, opening up your camera app, scanning the QR code, waiting for the page to load (if you have a smartphone with adequate internet connection in the first place of course) and then scrolling and clicking to find the relevant info?
Or, do you like to see this information right there on the label?
It might seem obvious that only one option is workable for consumers in a busy shopping environment. The other is just a series of fiddly hurdles designed to make useful information out-of-reach for the average person. Still, the ‘fiddly hurdle’ option is the one for which the alcohol industry have been pushing hard on policymakers.
In 2023, we made an access-to-documents request, the results of which show the scale of alcohol lobbyists’ efforts. From the moment the European Commission announced in its Beating Cancer Plan in February 2021, the alcohol industry inundated them with emails and meeting requests asking for flexibility and to be allowed ‘digital labels’.
Why the exemption for alcohol?
You may well ask why alcohol producers don’t already have to comply with the legal requirements all other food and drink producers are subjected to. That is, to provide ingredients and nutritional information on the label. It’s a good question. There is no good objective reason for that alcohol labelling exemption. As with many anomalies in food law, the answer lies in the lobbies. Back in 2011 when decision makers were negotiating the Food Information to Consumers Regulation, the alcohol industries lobbied hard (and successfully) to be given a special exemption from providing ingredients and nutritional information on the label.
There is no good objective reason for that alcohol labelling exemption. As with many anomalies in food law, the answer lies in the lobbies.
All of which has led to the strange situation where you can find out the amount of sugar in a can of cola from its label but as soon as you add whiskey to the product (as with pre-mixed spirit cans), that information evaporates. A situation which suits many alcohol producers very well. Indeed, the whiskey and cola mix contains just as much sugar as the regular cola but nearly twice as many calories (due to how calorific alcohol is). Information which is of interest to many consumers.
There is now a growing consensus, however, that this special treatment for a health-harming industry is no longer tenable. The European Commission’s own analysis is that there are “no objective grounds” to justify it and committed in 2021 to making such info mandatory for the first time.
Cue an intense lobbying effort from the alcohol companies, determined to maintain some level of special treatment while offering some weak self-regulatory steps. Namely, that they would provide this information. The catch? You have to go online to get it. Not so easy when you’re balancing a phone in one hand, a bottle in the other and your child’s just ran off down the snack aisle.
Indeed, scientific research from the EU’s research hub (aka the Joint Research Centre) requested by the European Commission underline that the provision of information for consumers via only digital means is “risky” and that “packaging labels still seem to be the best solution”.
Intense lobbying from the alcohol industry
Our access-to-documents request reveals the intensity of the lobbying campaign by the alcohol industry. In fact, within a week of the Beating Cancer Plan being published, CEEV, the largest European wine industry lobby, was straight out of the blocks meeting with DG AGRI. Then just three days later they told DG SANTE “it will not be possible to have the information translated on the label” – even though all other food and drink producers manage to do so.
Judging by the sheer number of lobby meetings granted with the alcohol industry, perhaps it is not so surprising that the Commission’s attitude has changed.
The number of meetings on alcohol labelling between the Commission and civil society were dwarfed by those from the industry. Following our access-to-documents request, the Commission’s DG AGRI and DG SANTE declared that 22 meetings were granted with spirits, wine and beer industry from May 2020 to December 2023, whereas no meetings took place with civil society.
Judging by the sheer number of lobby meetings granted with the alcohol industry, perhaps it is not so surprising that the Commission’s attitude has changed. It went from telling the wine industry (CEEV) in February 2021 that “self-regulation approach is not working” to strategizing with spiritsEUROPE in January 2023, asking them to “reflect on which other sectors could be potential allies of the digital labelling stance”.
Ingredients and nutritional info matter
In addition to these meetings, alcohol producers also have had the opportunity to make their case at ‘Civil Dialogue Groups’ with DG AGRI. These stakeholder discussions invariably, and due to the mismatch in resources, have few civil society stakeholders present but many industry representatives ready to take the floor. Indeed, it was at one of these meetings spiritsEUROPE declared that “for the large majority of spirits drinks neither ingredients lists or nutrition declaration are particularly helpful as clear spirits contain basically three ingredients and would have a nutrition declaration full of zeros”. It does not hold water. If that were true, would the spirits industry have invested so much time in trying to prevent consumers from seeing this information?
Indeed, while Irish whiskey producers for example like to cover their bottles in tales of artisanal craftmanship, they are slightly more reluctant to reveal the list of ingredients. That attractive amber hue is often derived not from whiskey-aged barrels but from caramel colouring additive (E150), even for those with a PGI ‘quality’ mark.
And at a time when 1 in 2 adults are already obese in Europe, nutritional information is an important tool to help shoppers opt for less calorific drinks. There is a wide range of non-alcoholic beverages with different nutritional profiles (e.g. juices and dairy drinks). Similarly, alcohol products have different levels of sugar, saturated fat or sodium (e.g. cream liquors, dessert wines and lagers will all vary significantly). And consumers must be able to know about such differences.
What now? The Commission must be bold on alcohol labelling
The European Commission committed to come forward by end of 2022 with a legislative proposal to make it mandatory for alcohol producers to provide ingredients and nutritional information. After a barrage of lobbying from alcohol producers, the proposal is now more than a year overdue, leaving consumers still in the dark about what is in the bottle.
While consumer information will never be a panacea to the over-consumption of unhealthy food and drinks like alcohol, it is an essential ingredient which cannot be ignored. It is high time the Commission becomes sober-minded and finally ends the special treatment for alcohol products. They must ensure that information is given where consumers can use it: on the bottle.
ENDS