Alcohol: Calorie Labelling

Baroness Sharples Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I mentioned Sainsbury’s, which is setting a very good example in this area, but I can tell the noble Lord that Waitrose and the Co-op have also taken steps to display calories on their own-brand alcohol labelling. Naturally, we hope that others will follow their lead. As yet, none has, and it is a pity that Tesco has said that it will not, but we will continue to work on this issue. Work is also going on at a European level, and the noble Lord may like to know that the UK pressed for mandatory energy declarations during negotiations on the EU Food Information for Consumers Regulation. It met with significant resistance, and we did not succeed, but we are still pressing for that.

[Baroness Sharples (Con)]

Does my noble friend have any estimate of the number of shoppers who actually read the labels?

[Earl Howe]

No, I do not, but it is worth noting that 49 businesses have signed up to the voluntary responsibility deal pledge on awareness of alcohol units, calories and other information. Those organisations have published calorie information on their websites about every single alcohol product. If one is buying online, it is possible to compare one product with another.