For over 25 years, the UK alcohol industry has worked proactively to ensure that alcohol labelling is both socially responsible and informative for consumers. As a direct result of the Portman Group’s Alcohol Labelling Guidelines, consumers now have access to more product and health information than ever before on packaging.
This includes:
- Chief Medical Officer Low Risk Drinking Guidelines
- Pregnancy warning
- Unit information
- Signposting to the independent alcohol education charity Drinkaware.
We recently published our latest review of alcohol labelling which covers 500 products from the top brands on the UK market and is the largest and most comprehensive survey of its kind.
The results encouragingly show near universal adherence to our voluntary best practice standards covering pregnancy warnings and unit labelling, as well as a a significant increase in the number of products carrying the Chief Medical Officers’ Low Risk Drinking Guidelines since our last review in 2021.
We have already begun engaging with the small number of producers identified in this review to close the remaining gaps in the market and to ensure further take up of the guidelines. It’s reassuring that many producers have already confirmed that labelling changes are underway.
We are also clear that this information should not be hidden away on labels, so it is welcome to see the vast majority of producers enhancing the visibility of information, such as through separate boxes on labels. We will be further clarifying our advice to producers that this is our recommended method for presenting Portman Group best practice.
It is particularly positive to see so many brands also going above and beyond to showcase additional elements such as calorie information, drink driving warnings and age restriction – further demonstrating a serious and widespread commitment to responsible marketing and tackling harm.
It’s important to note that all of this has been achieved without any need for government legislation and at no cost to the UK taxpayer. It highlights the ongoing success of voluntary partnerships within the industry to achieve our shared objective of informing consumers and preventing alcohol misuse.
We intend to keep a close eye on the market and continue to work in partnership across the sector and government, to ensure that health information is present on products and is accessible and easy-to-read for consumers.
