According to Article 16(4) of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, alcoholic beverages containing more than 1.2% alcohol by volume are exempt from both the list of ingredients and the nutritional declaration.
Following the adoption on 13 March 2017 by the European Commission of a report concerning the compulsory labelling of the list of ingredients and the nutritional declaration of alcoholic beverages, the commission had invited the sector to draw up a proposal for self-regulation in order to harmonise the labelling rules.
It is in this context that the seven professional organisations in the alcoholic beverages sector (AICV, The brewers of Europe, CEEV, CEVI, COPA COGECA, EFOW and SpiritsEUROPE) submitted their regulatory proposal on 12 March 2018.
It is proposed to return the energy value expressed per 100 mL while leaving the possibility for operators to also indicate this data per unit of consumption.
The information can be indicated directly on the label of the drink or in a dematerialised way via a QR-code, bar-code or internet link.
The proposal is composed of 4 annexes presenting the modalities by sector:
– Specific Annex for Spirits
– Specific Annex for Wines and Flavoured Wines
– Beer-specific annex
– Annex specific to Ciders and fruit wines
It is now up to the committee to evaluate this proposal.
Alcoholic beverages are complex matrixes, please be aware that our laboratory’s R&D department is currently working on developing a reliable analysis method to meet this future regulation.
