The Federation of the Brewing and Soft Drinks Industry lobby says it is dissatisfied with the government's planned reforms to the Alcohol Act. In their view, the proposed law unfairly discriminates between various types of alcopops.
According to the bill under review, the sale of drinks with an alcohol content between 5.5 percent and 8 percent by volume would be permitted in places like supermarkets — but only if they are fermented alcohol beverages. Meanwhile, the sale of alcopops containing distilled spirits would still be limited to Alko, the state-owned alcohol monopoly.
Alcopops — locally referred to as "long drinks" (or lonkero) — are quite popular products in Finland. Traditionally, they are made by mixing a distilled spirit, typically gin, with a fruit-flavoured soda. However, there are a number of variations of the beverage in which the alcohol is derived by fermentation.
Tuula Loikkanen, CEO of the Federation, said that the current reforms amendment would certainly increase the presence of fermented alcoholic beverages in grocery and convenience stores.
"There have been some misconceptions that all strong long drinks and alcoholic beverages would remain for sale only in Alko stores, but this is certainly not the case. Fermented long drinks have not disappeared from the market," Loikkanen stated in a press release.
The proposed legislation also favours fermented alcoholic drinks with a lower tax rate. Loikkanen pointed out the impact of this tax difference on retail prices.
"By browsing online stores, you can see that this difference in tax affects the retail price. It's somewhat odd that only these lower-taxed products are being freed up for broader sales," Loikkanen said.
There are also technical challenges associated with differentiating production methods. According to the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health, Valvira, production method controls have been based on measuring three compounds produced during the alcohol fermentation process.
However, Valvira has not set limits for the levels of the compounds and it would be possible, in theory, to pass off a non-fermented long drink by adding the compounds at a later stage in production.
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