Alcohol sector goes all in on e-labels amid mixed signals from EU

Actions at the policy level and several initiatives pulled together by the alcohol industry point at digital means of conveying more information to consumers, but scepticism from part of the European Commission persists.

EU decisions on alcohol labelling, including proposals for the mandatory labelling of ingredients and nutrient content on alcoholic beverages, are forecasted by the end of 2022 and health warnings on labels by the end of 2023.

A major reason for this standardisation effort at the EU level is that while labelling systems deliver as much information to consumers as possible, too many risk fragmenting the Single Market.

While waiting for regulatory inputs from lawmakers, different private actors have already proposed ways to improve the imparting of information using digital solutions.

Last year, spirits lobby spiritsEUROPE and the EU wine association Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV) launched an online tool designed to support wine and spirit companies in creating e-labels showing the list of ingredients as well as other information such as the product’s sustainability credentials.

A recent push to digital labelling came from the world’s second-largest wine and spirits company Pernod Ricard, as they presented at the end of September their digital e-label system.

The tool, to be launched this year in Europe and the US on a selection of spirits and progressively expanded to all their brands globally, is based on QR code technology which became more popular during the pandemic in the food service industry.

Food labelling proposal will be data-led, Commission says

Information on the sustainability of food products in the EU’s forthcoming harmonised front-of-pack labelling will heavily rely on data collected by producers, an EU official has said. Other stakeholders were quick to point out, however, that sustainability is only one factor in the complex labelling process.

E-labels in the CAP reform

At the regulatory level, e-labelling was already introduced in the recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, where, for the first time ever, a provision for mandatory information through digital tools on wines and aromatised wine products was included.

According to the new rules, as of November 2023, all wines commercialised in the EU will have to communicate the list of ingredients and the full nutrition declaration on-label or online.

For socialist MEP Paolo De Castro, who attended the talks on the reform of the EU’s farming subsidies programme in 2021, the final compromise on e-label came after a lengthy discussion but ultimately gave “the opportunity to consumers to know all the information they need, while at the same time it is not so much complicated for producers.”

He acknowledged that producers started to work in this direction immediately after the deal, putting the European and wine spirit sector at the forefront of developing digital labels to empower consumers in making fully informed choices.

“What we were expecting as a consequence of all these new projects was a strong call from the Commission to shape a harmonised digital label,” he said.

“However, instead of supporting this trend, the EU executive seems to neglect it,” he added, referring to a recent study published by the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), which says that digital means do not seem to be the best option to improve the accessibility of food information.

The study suggests that the “adoption of an exclusive display of food information using digital means seems inappropriate due to lack of scientific evidence on how these means are used by consumers in the marketplace or on their behavioural effects.”

De Castro views this development with concern as it risks questioning the agreement reached by lawmakers on the CAP e-label.

“I very much hope we don’t destroy the job we have already done during the CAP reform discussion,” he said, blaming “the approach sometimes ideological that the Commission is using more and more in the second part of this term.”

“From a political point of view, it will be very complicated for the agriculture community to accept to reopen everything,” he concluded.

Nutri-Score food labelling plan is not panacea, EU official says

The proposed colour-coded Nutri-Score labelling system should not be seen as a panacea for consumers to assess the healthiness of food, according to a member of the cabinet of EU’s agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski.

Conflicting signals from the Commission

At the same time, the Commission seems to openly approve of digital means when it comes to giving information to consumers on other types of products.

For instance, the Regulation on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products (ESPR) – presented at the end of March and expected to be finally adopted by the end of 2023 – features a ‘digital product passport’ to track the origin of components and raw materials used in all kinds of consumer goods.

“Much of the value of any product or asset today is a function of information and the way how this information can be accessed by us,” said Robert Konrad, adviser for Biodiversity at the Commission’s service for the environment (DG ENV).

He explained that the digital passport intends to create an information flow along value chains providing “the whole journey from the cradle to grave of a product even before it enters the economy.”

“At the moment, all data that could be useful for optimising the value chain of a product along the value chain is lost,” he said, adding that this is not only a case of the information for consumers but also business-to-business information.

According to him, there are already existing examples of private companies’ labels or voluntary digital product passports, which have proved to be highly efficient in capturing value and improving logistics.

“We believe that the digital product passport will provide a bridge across many initiatives or incentives in the value chain and to enable the circular business model,” he said.

EU’s upcoming 'digital product passport' will include packaging, official says

Although packaging as such won’t be regulated as a separate product category under the EU’s proposed eco-design rules for everyday consumer goods, it will be incorporated in the overall assessment of their environmental footprint, an EU official has said.

Over-consumption of …

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

Read more with Euractiv

Citizens initiative to phase out synthetic pesticides placed on EU agenda

A European Citizens' Initiative calling for a complete phase-out of synthetic pesticides by 2035 has passed the 1 million signature threshold needed to place it on the agenda of the European Commission and Parliament.