The absence of mandatory pregnancy warning labels in online alcohol purchasing contexts.

INTRODUCTION: As people increasingly migrate to online shopping platforms, hard-won improvements in requirements for consumer information provision at the point of sale are being eroded. An example is the alcohol pregnancy warning label for packaged alcoholic beverages that has been recently introduced in Australia and New Zealand. The aim of the present study was to assess the extent to which the pregnancy warning was visible at the online point of sale when the requirement became mandatory in August 2023. METHODS: Data for alcohol products sold on the websites of the two largest alcohol retailers in Australia were web-scraped from 1 to 3 August 2023. The captured data for 8343 alcoholic beverages were inspected to determine whether the pregnancy warning was visible. RESULTS: Virtually no products (0.1%) had the mandatory warning visible on the main sales page, and only 7% enabled visibility of the warning via optional product image rotation functionality. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The almost complete absence of the mandatory pregnancy warnings on the main product pages of major alcohol retailers' websites highlights the regulatory problems posed by the emerging shift to online shopping. The very low prevalence of visible pregnancy warnings is likely to be an overestimate of the extent to which consumers would be exposed to warnings due to images being counted as being present regardless of their quality or readability. New regulation is needed to ensure that mandatory information requirements for harmful products are applied to online shopping contexts.

Uptake of mandated pregnancy warnings in the Australian alcoholic ready-to-drink beverage market.

INTRODUCTION: A mandatory pregnancy warning was introduced in Australia 2020 to advise the public of the potential harms of prenatal alcohol exposure. Due to industry pressure, a 3-year implementation period was granted. The aim of this study was to analyse the extent to which the mandatory warning had been applied to ready-to-drink (RTD) alcohol product labels almost 2 years into the implementation period. METHODS: The sample included 491 RTD products sold in three alcohol stores in Sydney, Australia in March-May 2022. Identified warnings were categorised as a mandated warning, a DrinkWise warning (an industry-developed option) or 'Other' warning. Analyses were conducted overall and by RTD type. RESULTS: Almost all (94%) of the sampled RTD products had some form of pregnancy warning, but only 36% displayed the mandatory version. Of the non-mandatory warnings, 74% were DrinkWise warnings (42% of total sample) and 27% were 'Other' warnings (15% of total sample). There was no apparent relationship between alcohol content and likelihood of displaying a mandatory warning. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Two years into the three-year implementation period for the mandatory pregnancy warning, only around one-third of the assessed RTD products exhibited compliance. Uptake of the mandatory pregnancy warning appears to be slow. Continued monitoring will be required to determine whether the alcohol industry meets its obligations within and beyond the implementation period.

Type and prevalence of nutrition-related claims on alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the extent of nutrition-related claims on ready-to-drink (RTD) alcohol products to provide insights into the types and prevalence of claims across the category. METHODS: Product type, alcohol content, and presence/type of nutrition-related claims (n=491) information was collected, March-May 2022. Chi-square analyses with pairwise z-tests were used to identify differences in claim prevalence by product type. Spearman's correlation was used to assess the relationship between alcohol content and number of claims. RESULTS: Approximately half (52%) of RTDs displayed at least one claim, with the most common claims referring to naturalness (32%), sugar- (31%), and energy-content (32%). Hard seltzers displayed the most claims (96%, M=3.4 claims/product, SD=1.6). There was a moderate negative correlation between alcohol content and number of claims (r =-.43, p<.001). CONCLUSION: Results show the extensive use of nutrition-related claims on RTDs in Australia, particularly for hard seltzers. IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH: Nutrition-related claims have the potential to mislead consumers about the healthiness of alcohol products and more stringent regulation of nutrition-related claims is needed.