Stirring things up: ingredients and nutrients mandatory for alcoholic beverages

On 29 March last year, I wrote that the European Commission requested the alcohol industry to propose a self-regulatory framework about the labelling of alcoholic beverages (>1.2% alcohol). This proposal should arrange for mandatory inclusion of the list of ingredients and nutrition declaration on the label. The background is that, until now, alcohol was exempt from the obligation to include this information on the label. The European Commission gave the industry an ambitious deadline: it would need to come up with a proposal within a year. The latest news: the industry managed to make this deadline!
 
Proposal
Yesterday, the document was officially handed over to European Commission member Vytenis Andriukaitis (responsible for Health and Food Safety). The proposal describes how the industry (represented by seven European industry organizations for beer, wine, cider and spirits) will provide consumers with transparent information about ingredients and information of the nutrition of alcoholic beverages. This is done on the basis of a number of principles that apply to all alcoholic drinks. In addition, the Annexes list sector specific rules for beer, cider, spirits and wine. It is however intended that the rules for specific sectors will be provided in a harmonized and consistent way. It is therefore deemed important that the sectors will keep cooperating.
 
In the proposal, the industry states that it will ensure that the list of ingredients and nutrition declaration will be communicated to the consumer. This can be done on the label itself or “off-label”, provided that the information should be easily accessible from the label itself. For example with a link, bar code or QR-code on the label. Companies may in their discretion determine how they will provide the information to consumers, provided that this should be in line with the general labelling rules, the principles laid down in the proposal and the sector specific Annexes.
 
Wine
The Annex for wine shows that it can be complicated to include the ingredients and nutrition declaration for these types of products. Due to the natural character or the production method of wine, the composition of the wine can vary between years or if the wine stays in the bottle for a longer period of time. This of course has an influence on the list of ingredients and nutrition value. Therefore the industry will endeavor to find a clear way to provide relevant information, taking into account the specificities of the EU wine sector. For wine, the possibility to provide (additional) information online will be investigated – for example via the website WineinModeration.
 
Enforcement and evaluation
Each Annex to the proposal furthermore describes how the sector will support producers with the implementation of the new rules. Each sector will in addition create an own reporting- and complaints system, to ensure that complaints are handled timely. In March 2021 (so not until three years from now) the industry will issue a report on the progress of the implementation. This is a first and important step, but there are no specific rules yet. The coming year(s), the sectors will first need to make a big effort to translate the general principles from the proposal into specific requirements for producers to work with.

Sarah Arayess