Alcohol Healthwatch (AHW) recently issued a media release stating that 34 percent of alcohol products have no pregnancy warning label.
The NZ Alcohol Beverages Council was so concerned with this statement that it asked AHW directly for information on which retail outlets and products were not complying with the Food Standards Australia New Zealand requirements (FSANZ).
“There was widespread non-compliance regardless of the type or location of the premises and it was unhelpful to identify individual retailers as this existed on a widespread scale,” said AHW.
“Due to the seriousness of AHW’s claims, we conducted our own audit in one retail store and checked 1,756 products. We found that 99.3 percent of products had correct pregnancy warning labelling,” said Executive Director Virginia Nicholls.
There were 20 products that did not have a pregnancy label. As these products were manufactured before the 1st of August 2023, they complied with FSANZ.
Twelve products were not labelled correctly. One New Zealand product was incorrectly labelled, and NZABC believes this originated from a cancelled export order. The other products either missed the over-sticker process or the labels may have detached while in-store.
This retail group has now contacted the suppliers of the 12 products to ensure they relabel existing products in-store and in their own stock holdings.
Why is the NZABC audit so different to the AHW factsheet?
- Crucial information was missing from the AHW factsheet, including the locations or products that were audited and the issues with the products that did not meet the FSANZ requirements. In the factsheet, it said that photos were taken, but none were provided to identify the exact pregnancy label issues.
- AHW state (p6) that although 33.5 percent of the products did not have the correct pregnancy warning label, it is difficult to determine whether these are non-compliant. They need to be manufactured after 1 August 2023, but the date of manufacture can be difficult for a layperson to determine.”
Why was this information not included in the AHW media release?
AHW does not fully acknowledge FSANZ requirements in the factsheet. Ironically, the only photos provided meet FSANZ requirements:
- Pregnancy label near an industry label or message (such as drink responsibly).
- Pregnancy label near links to an industry website.
- Pregnancy label found on the bottom or base of the packaging/box.
In Table 1, there are also several ‘unknowns’ with one category as high as 19 percent. In the small print, it said that “The majority of products in this category were multipacks where the full labelling of the individual units could not be seen.”
AHW stated that “The purpose of gathering the information was to find out if the same problem exists in New Zealand as in Australia. In Australia, 37 percent of alcohol products did not have the warning, or if they did, it was most commonly placed at the back of the products.”
Again, this met the FSANZ requirements.
“We recognise the limitation of space on the beer, wine and spirits labels/boxes and take great pride in meeting FSANZ’s requirements in spite of this constraint,” said Nicholls.
“It’s important to reiterate that we support the Health NZ advice to stop drinking alcohol during pregnancy.”
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