{"id":515442,"date":"2026-03-03T06:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T06:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515442\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T06:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T06:52:07","slug":"nutrient-content-claims-on-alcohol-australian-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515442\/","title":{"rendered":"Nutrient content claims on alcohol, Australian research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nutrient<\/p>\n

Two new Australian studies from\u00a0The George Institute for Global Health and UNSW have revealed a shift in how the alcohol industry is positioning its products. One of the studies\u00a0found\u00a0that \u2018low sugar\u2019, \u2018low carb\u2019 and \u2018low calorie\u2019 claims on alcohol products are making consumers more likely to perceive those products as healthy, despite the alcohol content.<\/p>\n

Testing the effects of nutrition-related claims<\/p>\n

In the first study,\u00a0published in\u00a0Health Promotion International<\/a>, researchers surveyed over 2000 Australian drinkers in a nationally representative sample. Participants were shown alcohol products with and without nutrition-related claims and asked to rate how healthy they considered each product.\u00a0The results showed that consumers were nearly three times more likely to rate a product as healthy when it carried a carbohydrate claim and more than twice as likely when it carried a sugar claim \u2014 this was despite the fact that every product in the experiment contained identical levels of alcohol.<\/p>\n

The study notes that Australia currently permits these claims on alcohol products while the EU and UK\u00a0have banned nutrient content claims on alcohol, and the issue is under active consideration at the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the international body that sets global food labelling standards.<\/p>\n

Trends in zero alcohol products<\/p>\n

The second study,\u00a0published in\u00a0Drug and Alcohol Review, tracked the growth of zero-alcohol products across Australian supermarkets and bottle shops between 2022 and 2024.\u00a0Researchers found that alcohol-branded zero-alcohol products now account for 59% of all zero-alcohol drinks available in Australian supermarkets, up from 37% in 2022. In alcohol stores, the range of zero-alcohol products more than doubled over the same period, growing from 110 products in 2022 to 261 in 2024.<\/p>\n

Because alcohol cannot legally be sold in most Australian supermarkets, zero-alcohol versions of alcohol brands occupy a regulatory grey zone that allows them to sit on supermarket shelves alongside soft drinks and juices. According to the research, more than half of Australian 14- to 17-year-olds have seen zero-alcohol products in supermarkets, and more than a third have tried one. There are currently no legal restrictions on selling these products to minors.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupermarkets have always been considered a protected space from alcohol promotion. What we are seeing now is that protection being quietly eroded. These products carry the same branding, the same packaging and the same brand associations as their alcoholic counterparts. The exposure is real, and the regulatory framework has not kept pace,\u201d said\u00a0Professor Simone Pettigrew, The George Institute for Global Health.<\/p>\n

Image credit: iStock.com\/Aamulya<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two new Australian studies from\u00a0The George Institute for Global Health and UNSW have revealed a shift in how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[257770,64,63,257769,137,35926],"class_list":{"0":"post-515442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-alcohol-marketing-claims","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-george-institute-for-global-health","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-unsw"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}