The alcohol industry is targeting health-conscious younger Australians with nutritional claims such as “low calorie”, “low sugar” and “gluten free” appearing on half of pre-mixed alcoholic drinks, according to new research.
In the first study to assess how frequently health claims are used by the alcohol industry, researchers analysed 491 pre-mixed products found in three major retailers (Dan Murphy’s, Liquorland, BWS) in Sydney.
They found the most common claims related to “naturalness” (32%), calories (32%), sugar content (31%), gluten (23%), carbs (20%) and a product being vegan (13%).
Led by the George Institute for Global Health, the study found 52% of products made at least one of these nutrition-related claims, despite research showing alcohol is inherently unhealthy.
The nutrition claims appeared on 96% of hard seltzers, which are specifically marketed at younger drinkers, with an average of 3.4 nutrition-related claims on those products.
The study, published on Friday in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, found that this “indicates that producers are intensively using these claims to market these products as healthy options”.
The lead author of the study, George Institute food and alcohol researcher Bella Sträuli, said the alcohol industry was “acutely aware” that alcohol consumption was declining, particularly among increasingly health-conscious younger people. She said it was employing strategies to increase the perceived healthiness of these products in an attempt to rejuvenate sales.
Prof Simone Pettigrew, a co-author of the research, said previous research had shown nutritional labels such as “low sugar” could be misleading, distracting consumers with often “spurious” claims and preventing them from understanding the real health impacts of the product.
“You’re drawing their attention to something that’s not in it, rather than helping them to focus on what is in it, which is the harmful nutrient of alcohol.”
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a subsidiary of the World Health Organization, has identified seven different cancers associated with alcohol.
Packaged beverages sold in Australia that exceed 1.15% alcohol cannot display claims suggesting they are beneficial for health, but can make claims about energy, carbohydrate and gluten content. Generic terms such as “natural” are neither explicitly permitted nor banned.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand is now reviewing sugar claims on alcohol labels. In submissions to FSANZ, peak health organisations including the Cancer Council called for “low carb” and “low sugar” labelling on alcoholic drinks to be scrapped. The organisations argue they mislead consumers into thinking alcohol products are healthier.
Terry Slevin, an adjunct professor at ANU and the chief executive of the Public Health Association of Australia, said research had shown the claims boosted sales by allaying concerns around alcohol consumption.
“The notion of gluten free and vegan friendly and all the rest of it, all these really are simply preposterous claims in the context of the consumption of alcohol, when we know about all the other adverse effects of alcohol consumption.
“It’s well past time where the alcohol industry can or should be trusted to determine their own marketing strategies in this manner.”
Slevin said the Hard Solo case was a recent example of why self-regulation of the alcohol industry does not work. “It was simply wrong to put alcohol in a brand that had for so many decades been a sugary soft drink, but it took months and months for the various complaints to make its way through the alcohol industry’s pretend code system.”
