Marc Tarabella, member of parliament’s agricultural and rural development committee, criticised the EU’s slow approach and submitted a question to the commission regarding the matter.
“Europeans are the world’s heaviest drinkers, yet no one knows the amount of calories, the composition or the energy value of what they drink,” Tarabella wrote on The Parliament Magazine.
In 2011, alcoholic beverages were taken out of legislation regarding food labelling to “explore different ways” of communicating the nutritional information of alcoholic products.
However, four years later a solution has not yet been resolved despite expectations of a legislative position to be delivered last year.
“Europe is slow to introduce new regulations – this is unacceptable,” Tarabella said.
“We want drinks to be labelled with a list of ingredients and their energy value. It should be possible, for example, to see how many calories are in a glass or in 100ml.”
He continued to explain that a recent study suggested when calorie information is displayed on bottles and drinks menus customers consumed approximately 400 fewer calories than they would have otherwise.
Furthermore, he highlighted that obesity affects 14 million Europeans and alcohol contributes up to 10% of frequent drinkers’ daily calorie intake.
“This is a question of fighting for consumer protection and safeguarding people’s health,” Tarabella added.
“We should not deprive ourselves of legislation that could help combat obesity or alcoholism.
“I hope the industry will fully cooperate in the development of new legislation. Parliament wants the process to be as transparent as possible and consumers have a right to know.”
Last month, Diageo became the first multi-national drinks firm to voluntarily pledge to print alcohol content and nutrition information per serve on its bottles.
Source: www.thespiritsbusiness.com
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