EditorialBeer the ‘beautiful’ truth
This summer, we’ve heard a lot of noise from Australia’s big brewers, with companies like Lion and Carlton & United Breweries attempting to market beer as a healthy choice for Australians.
Lion, which is part of the multi-national Kirin group, have added health claims (like 99.9% sugar free) on their beer labels, and are pretty pleased with themselves.
They built a campaign website with questions you don’t often hear being asked such as “why is there so little sugar in beer?”; and promoted videos with taglines such as “free beer is beautiful, so is preservative free beer” and ‘helpful’ facts for consumers like “over 90 per cent of beer is comprised of water”.
Lion wrote to stakeholders, including FARE, about the launch of the new initiative to “broaden drinkers’ knowledge” and “provide consumers with more transparent, readily available information about beer”.
“Labelling transparency is not only an important first step in educating people about beer, but also in supporting them to make more informed choices about what and how they choose to drink.”
Source: Lion media release
Lion claims that voluntarily adding nutritional information panels to its portfolio will help dispel some of the myths around beer, and that they are supporting consumers to make informed choices.
But not all health experts were swallowing the spin.
The new labels, which are being promoted as encouraging transparency, still omit important health information. For instance, there is no health warnings mentioning alcohol’s links to more than 200 health conditions, or of the practical guidelines set by health professionals which recommend consuming no more than two standard drinks of alcohol a day.
Many were sceptical about any campaign which promotes the supposed nutritional content of alcoholic beverages while
“They’re certainly not adding anything to your diet other than to your waistline. There’s no level of alcohol consumption that is entirely free from harm,” said Dr Bruce Bolam from VicHealth.
Lion strategically uses premium, or credence, claims by use of language such as: “Low carb”, “99.9% sugar free” or “preservative free” to make it seem like beer has health benefits it does not possess.
This is despite evidence which clearly shows that people falsely perceive products such as ‘low carb’ beers to be healthier, with a 2010 study finding that 15 per cent report consuming more ‘low carb’ beer than they normally would because they believe it is healthier.
Obesity Policy Coalition Executive Manager Jane Martin said Lion were deliberately “capitalising” on public concern around sugar and obesity, and that labelling beer as 99.9% sugar-free “only tells part of the story”.
“The nutrition panel doesn’t show you where the energy is coming from because alcohol isn’t listed. It’s the alcohol that contains the kilojoules. It’s like saying marshmallows are 99.9% fat free. The messaging is making the products appear healthier than they are,” she said.
In addition to the health sector, many members of the public are also unimpressed with the stunt, with The Alcohol Advertising Review Board having received and upheld multiple complaints about Lion’s advertisements.
Beer the ‘beautiful’ truth
Slamming the brewer’s marketing as deceptive and misleading, FARE wrote to Lion’s Chief Executive Officer Stuart Irvine with its concerns.
The correspondence requested that Lion cease and desist their Beer the beautiful truth campaign, and cautioned that if a satisfactory response was not received addressing FARE’s concerns then a complaint would be submitted to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for false or misleading advertising.
As the brewer’s advertising stepped up a notch heading into the summer months, FARE launched its own digital campaign in response to these industry efforts.
As part of FARE’s ongoing Alcohol Truth efforts, the Beer the obvious truth health campaign looks at some of the facts the brewers are less inclined to market, with Lion’s Beer the beautiful truth firmly in its sights.
Leading nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton OAM, who helped devise the national healthy eating guidelines, praised Beer the obvious truth:
“Health concerns about beer relate to its alcohol content, not its very modest carb content. It’s the alcohol that contributes the kilojoules, at a rate of 29 kilojoules per gram. Beer contains very little in the way of valuable nutrients. There’s next to no protein, and no significant amount of other nutrients. More importantly, the alcohol negatively affects the body’s ability to metabolise kilojoules consumed from foods or from stored fat,” says Dr Stanton.
Following the launch of Beer the obvious truth, Lion was quick to deny that their internet site is an attempt to claim beer is a health food.
Source: ABC Breakfast Facebook page
And behind the scenes, the response that FARE received from Lion unsurprisingly did very little to alleviate the Foundation’s concerns.
In a letter of reply Lion stated it was “disappointed FARE has chosen to communicate its views in such a hostile manner” and “with regards to [FARE’s] comments on our campaign, Lion rejects these suggestions completely”.
The letter claimed that FARE was threatening to report Lion to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on what are clearly spurious grounds, and then proceeded to attack the Foundation’s credibility, approach and policy position:
This correspondence found its way to the media, with an exclusive published in The Daily Telegraph (‘Campaign has war brewing’, 13/01/2016) likening the exchange to “a full-blown war” between beer company Lion and “the country’s most vocal anti-alcohol lobby group”.
The one-sided report in The Daily Telegraph, which failed to contact FARE for a response ahead of publication, mirrored a number of Lion beer boss Mr James Brindley’s comments.
While the quotes pertaining to Lion’s work read like a company press release (“Lion makes some of the country’s topselling brands, including XXXX, Tooheys, Hahn and James Boag’s” and “Beer: The Beautiful Truth is a consumer information campaign by Lion, which includes a website, an outdoor ad campaign and the inclusion of nutritional information on all of Lion’s local beers”); the editor adopted a more critical stance of the Foundation:
Source: ‘Campaign has war brewing’, The Daily Telegraph, 13 January 2016.
A copy of Lion’s letter to FARE on this matter was also obtained by The Shout, news service and mouthpiece for the Australian hotel, bar and liquor industry.
Against this background, and given the failure of Lion to provide a satisfactory response to stakeholder concerns, FARE has referred the matter to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for assessment as promised and the complaint is currently under investigation.
Lion’s Beer the beautiful truth campaign does not adequately acknowledge the health risks associated with alcohol, nor that beer contains little nutritional value and that these products negatively affects the body’s ability to metabolise kilojoules from foods consumed or stored fat.
In response, FARE has renewed its calls for the introduction of government regulated health warning labels to replace the industry’s current weak consumer messages, and will continue to encourage Australians to see past the industry spin and distortion.
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