Diageo to introduce nutritional information on alcohol packaging

Diageo has voluntarily offered to add nutritional information on “Serving Facts” labels which show “Amount Per Serving” measurements.

US serving facts panels for Smirnoff Red, Harp Lager and Blossom Hill wine
US serving facts panels for Smirnoff Red, Harp Lager and Blossom Hill wine

Alcoholic drinks giant Diageo has announced that it will voluntarily be adding nutritional information to its packaging across all global markets.

This means that designers who work on drinks brands could soon be thinking about how to display this information.

In the UK Diageo has worked with design consultancies including Landor, Bloom, Design Bridge and Brandhouse and its global portfolio includes brands such as Guinness, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Baileys.

In the US Diageo’s Smirnoff Red product has already been given the new label which indicates information such as calories, carbohydrate and fat per serving.

While current EU legislation stipulates that foodstuffs have to show nutritional information per 100ml, Diageo says that the same 100ml principal would not transfer well to alcohol as “it does not reflect the reality of the way of the way drinkers consume alcohol.”

Instead its “Serving Facts” panel will define a serving size, indicate how many servings the container holds and detail the nutritional information based on an “Amount Per Serving” calculation.

While the Smirnoff Red label is already on-pack, the others we have shown are impressions, supplied by Diageo, indicating how different drinks might be represented in the US market.

A spokeswoman for Diageo says that the introduction of the new information is potentially costly for the company and could take “years to get through”. She adds: “As and when packaging comes round for a redesign agencies will be briefed.”

Ian Duncan, MEP for Scotland and member of the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee, says: “Providing both the nutrition and alcohol content of alcohol drinks, in an easy to understand ‘per serving’ format, is a major improvement on the confusing current system, where there are different measurements of alcohol units across the EU.

“This is a hugely positive step and one that the European Commission should reflect on, as it considers how to tackle harmful drinking.”

Diageo also says it wants to work with the EU to standardise what is considered an alcohol unit, as the measure of this varies across the 28 EU Member States.

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  • Sam Barone March 24, 2015 at 12:01 am

    Nutritional labeling on alcoholic beverages? Seriously? Come on…

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