Consumer power wins as Diageo adds more label information

The petition urged the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to require a new label for alcoholic beverages that would give consumers clear information about alcohol content, serving sizes, calories, and ingredients.

The groups argue that alcohol facts labels will do for alcoholic beverages what nutrition facts labels have done for packaged food - provide readable information that would empower consumers to make informed decisions about the products they consume.

They argue that the rules governing alcoholic-beverage labelling suffer from jurisdictional gaps between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), formerly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

For example, the FDA can weigh in on alcoholic-beverage labelling in only a small number of cases. And in addition, say the organisations, TTB has no institutional expertise in diet or nutrition.

They also contend that the TTB's inconsistent standards for beer, wine, and hard liquor, and the abundance of products that increasingly blur those three traditional categories of alcoholic beverages, simply adds to the confusion.

"Existing labelling rules are inconsistent, confusing, and don't help consumers compare beverages' alcohol or calorie content,"​ said NCL president Linda Golodner.

"While wine and hard liquor list alcohol content, beer doesn't. And while 'light' beer and low-alcohol wines list calories, regular beer, wine, and hard liquor don't."​

George Hacker, director of the CSPI's alcohol policies project, underlined the group's health message. "Consumers who are trying to maintain a healthful weight have very little information about how many calories alcoholic beverages are contributing to their diet,"​ he said. "Given America's concern over the epidemic of overweight and obesity, it makes no sense that such a significant source of calories goes undisclosed on labels."​

The alcohol facts label would disclose the alcohol content and standard servings of the beverage. Labels would also list the number of drinks per container and the amount of alcohol in a standard serving, along with calorie information.

In addition, the label would detail ingredients. This, say consumer bodies, would help the seven million Americans with food allergies. Currently, sulphites and Yellow Dye No. 5 are the only ingredients that are required to be listed.

"It seems silly that a bottle of lemonade has to list its ingredients, but a bottle of hard [alcoholic] lemonade doesn't,"​ Hacker said. "Our proposed label would let consumers see exactly what's in various brands of beers, wine, and hard liquors."​

A recent survey commissioned by the CSPI found that 58 per cent of Americans either do not know the caloric content of beer or believe it to be lower than it is. Eighty-nine per cent support calorie labelling on alcoholic beverages.

Diageo volunteers information​

While the consumer groups' proposal is still just that, one industry player has not waited to see the response from the US authorities. Diageo North America, the US arm of the British group which is the world's largest drinks group, said that planned to expand the labels on many of its products to include information such as alcohol content, serving size, macro-nutrients, carbohydrates and calories.

"Diageo is a consumer-focused company,"​ said Guy L. Smith, Diageo executive vice president. " Starting in 2004, Diageo North America will begin providing American consumers with this information for its products. This consumer data will be included on our websites, in printed promotional materials and ultimately on packaging materials."​

Smith said that the company also broadly supported the consumer groups' proposals. "We applaud the coalition of consumer advocacy organisations for their proposals to provide increased product information to consumers and endorse its intent and purposes."​

However, he stressed that Diageo opposed any mandatory requirements on labelling. "More government regulation is just not necessary. Voluntary approaches to providing consumer information will work. Broad mandates from government are not called for."​

Diageo's North American advertising and marketing code mandates responsibility messages on all its advertising and marketing materials, Smith said. "Diageo's voluntary labelling also gives the consumer the information they want about carbs, calories, alcohol content and serving size in order to make comparisons across beverage alcohol."​

Smith said Diageo North America would continue to carefully study consumer attitudes and interests. "We expect to conduct continuing research, learning from consumers about their desires for this type of information. We expect to move forward thoughtfully, making sure we provide consumers with meaningful information in the best, least confusing ways possible. We will also be developing our global policy on consumer info during the course of 2004."​

With brands such as Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Smirnoff, J&B, Baileys, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray and Captain Morgan in its US portfolio, Diageo's move will have a major impact on the market, and it will be interesting to see whether other companies follow suit - since consumers will find it hard to compare the calorie content of Diageo's brands with other spirits if rival manufacturers do not adopt a similar stance.

Which is why a mandatory scheme is really the only one that will be any good, since it serves little purpose if only a handful of companies volunteer this additional information. More importantly, a mandatory scheme is the only way of ensuring that the information on the labels is accurate and unbiased - how exactly will Diageo calculate the calorie content of its spirits, for example, or assess the micro-nutrient content?

In any case, with not insignificant costs entailed by the inclusion of such information - in terms of new labels, POS material, etc - other companies will not necessarily rush to follow Diageo's lead, unless they feel that the company will gain some substantial advantage by being the only one to provide this information, or they are obliged to do so by law.