Drinks trade warns crackdown will cost all consumers and cut choice

Published on Wednesday 18 June 2008 22:04

REDUCED choice and higher prices for all buyers would be the result of the Scottish Government's proposed crackdown on cheap alcohol, ministers were warned yesterday.

Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, unveiled a raft of proposals earlier this week designed to curb binge drinking, particularly among the young.

Mr MacAskill said he wanted to raise the age limit for buying alcohol in shops from 18 to 21 and bring in minimum prices for alcohol such as 35p per unit.

The plans came in for intense criticism when they were published, with warnings that the minimum price proposals might be against EU competition laws.

Yesterday, however, it emerged that the minimum pricing plans might cause serious problems for the drinks industry, with the knock-on effect that consumers in Scotland may be faced with a much more restricted choice of drinks than in England.

Jeremy Beadles, of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, warned that the plans would force major shops and drinks producers to adopt separate distribution and production lines in order to comply with Scottish legislation.

At the moment, most alcohol is packaged and labelled nationally for the big retailers, with each product having the same barcode identifying the product and its price.

If Scotland had a different pricing structure, the bottles for sale in Scotland would need different barcodes and different packaging, Mr Beadles said.

"The barcode automatically brings up the price of the product in the marketplace. The pricing is done centrally and any promotions are done nationally. If you have a different pricing structure in Scotland, you would need different barcodes for products shipped to Scotland.

"It's adding complication and cost into the process," Mr Beadles said.

He added that some retailers might just drop less popular products for Scotland, depriving consumers of choice.

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If a supermarket chain has 200 different wines on offer at the moment, it might in future keep all these for its English shops but drop 50 or more of the lowest-selling labels in Scotland, because it would not be worthwhile to change the packaging and barcodes.