In a New Zealand first, from today the country’s two largest beer producers will add nutrition information panels to the back of bottles, cans and packaging, helping consumers to be more informed about what they are drinking.
The Brewers Association, in partnership with two of its members, Lion and DB, has committed to rolling out the voluntary initiative. Throughout the year, New Zealand will see more than 450 million beer bottles and cans carry information on sugar, calories, dietary fibre, protein and carbohydrate content.
All products will continue to carry standard drinks labelling.
The initiative is stage one of a long-term category programme, called Beer the Beautiful Truth, designed to bust myths and communicate nutritional facts about beer.
The low-sugar secret
Colmar Brunton research commissioned by the Brewers Association found that many Kiwis are not aware that beer is low in sugar. The truth is that most beer is 99% sugar free.
“The research shows that Kiwis have some pretty big gaps in their knowledge about beer,” said NZ Brewers Association external relations director Kevin Sinnott.
“For example, most people don’t know that most beer is 99% sugar free. Malted barley is one of the key ingredients in beer, and in the brewing process the starch from malted barley is converted into sugar.
“This sugar, or sugar from any other ingredient such as wheat, other grains, or natural cane sugar, is then converted into alcohol by the yeast during the fermentation process. As a result, the finished beer is very low in sugar.
Consumers keen
“Consumers are keen for this information to be made available,” Sinnott says. “Almost 75% of our survey respondents told us that nutritional content should be on alcohol products’ packaging. Having nutrition labels on food is especially important to women, with 83% in favour of labelling.
“We know that sugars and preservatives are particularly important to consumers and shoppers, so we’ve highlighted these facts”, says Sinnott.
As part of the campaign, all the nutritional information included on participating beers will also be available on the website beerthebeautifultruth.co.nz.
The DB and Lion products will start hitting the shelves soon, and the Brewers Association would welcome other New Zealand breweries joining the category campaign.
Bad rap?
“Beer gets a bad rap at times, often due to misconceptions around what’s in it,” Sinnott reckons. “With nutrition information panels, everything is out in the open. And we think people might be pleasantly surprised by the beautiful truth about beer.”
A nationally representative sample of 18+ year olds were interviewed. The interviews were conducted online via Colmar Brunton’s Fly Buys Panel. n=1,001 interviews conducted. Fieldwork dates: 1st February 1-8.
Who created the campaign?
This labelling information came to M+AD in the form of a PR release from Porter Novelli. We’ve asked them to also supply information about the agencies involved in the labelling and the Beautiful Truth campaign.
We’ll publish this info when we hear back from Porter Novelli.
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