Title – 50p-a-unit booze ‘to cut food bills’
Source – Metro
Date – 29th September 2009
This is a nice thought and it would be great if supermarkets were that focussed that they were the ones to lead the country out of the ‘perils’ of alcohol abuse or the obesity ‘crisis’ it is facing. I would say this is probably not realistic…
I’m not suggesting that the minimum unit price for alcohol does not have its merits, but arguing that it will turn us towards eating more vegetables is probably taking it a step too far.
Supermarkets do not promote alcohol because they are somehow inherently evil, they do so because that’s is one of the commercial tactics which attracts people to their stores; I’m not sure cheap carrots have the same effect.
A simplistic way of looking at the promotions which attract people into the stores are those on ‘luxury’ products, which may not form part of our ‘stable’ diet, but which if we think we can get cheap will drive us to a particular store to buy our ‘stable’ diet at the same time.
I am not defending this tactic, but already we see other non-alcoholic brands being pushed, I went into a local supermarket this week and alongside the cheap alcohol which confronts you on entry was the largest stack of the largest tins of sweets I have ever seen; ‘buy one get one free’ was the message. Now you can price alcohol out of supermarket promotions and I have made an argument for levelling the playing field between the supermarkets and the on-trade before, but how far do you take pricing everything which is bad for you? Do we set a minimum price of sugar, calories, salt, additives, fat, fizzy drinks…
The very bottom end of the alcohol market is certainly difficult to defend when alcohol is cheaper than water and the argument that a minimum unit price on a 1.5l bottle of cheap cider currently priced at less than £1 will somehow affect the lowest earners in society is one I wouldn’t want to make. Some of these products and prices are there purely to allow people to get drunk and that is not a way to Responsibly Retail Alcohol.
The problem once again is finding a sensible position between the most aggressive marketing of ‘drinks industry’ and the ‘prohibitionists’. There are areas where the availability of alcohol at rock bottom prices is an issue, but the vast majority of the population drink responsibly and should be allowed to enjoy alcohol without being demonised or priced out.
At Beyond The Blue we run a number of courses for those working in the Licensed Retail Sector to help them sell alcohol more responsibly. These include; The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements; The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence; Our Conflict Management and Resolution (CMR) course compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.
Please visit our website at www.btbl.co.uk. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.
Source – Metro
Date – 29th September 2009
This is a nice thought and it would be great if supermarkets were that focussed that they were the ones to lead the country out of the ‘perils’ of alcohol abuse or the obesity ‘crisis’ it is facing. I would say this is probably not realistic…
I’m not suggesting that the minimum unit price for alcohol does not have its merits, but arguing that it will turn us towards eating more vegetables is probably taking it a step too far.
Supermarkets do not promote alcohol because they are somehow inherently evil, they do so because that’s is one of the commercial tactics which attracts people to their stores; I’m not sure cheap carrots have the same effect.
A simplistic way of looking at the promotions which attract people into the stores are those on ‘luxury’ products, which may not form part of our ‘stable’ diet, but which if we think we can get cheap will drive us to a particular store to buy our ‘stable’ diet at the same time.
I am not defending this tactic, but already we see other non-alcoholic brands being pushed, I went into a local supermarket this week and alongside the cheap alcohol which confronts you on entry was the largest stack of the largest tins of sweets I have ever seen; ‘buy one get one free’ was the message. Now you can price alcohol out of supermarket promotions and I have made an argument for levelling the playing field between the supermarkets and the on-trade before, but how far do you take pricing everything which is bad for you? Do we set a minimum price of sugar, calories, salt, additives, fat, fizzy drinks…
The very bottom end of the alcohol market is certainly difficult to defend when alcohol is cheaper than water and the argument that a minimum unit price on a 1.5l bottle of cheap cider currently priced at less than £1 will somehow affect the lowest earners in society is one I wouldn’t want to make. Some of these products and prices are there purely to allow people to get drunk and that is not a way to Responsibly Retail Alcohol.
The problem once again is finding a sensible position between the most aggressive marketing of ‘drinks industry’ and the ‘prohibitionists’. There are areas where the availability of alcohol at rock bottom prices is an issue, but the vast majority of the population drink responsibly and should be allowed to enjoy alcohol without being demonised or priced out.
At Beyond The Blue we run a number of courses for those working in the Licensed Retail Sector to help them sell alcohol more responsibly. These include; The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements; The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence; Our Conflict Management and Resolution (CMR) course compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.
Please visit our website at www.btbl.co.uk. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.
No comments:
Post a Comment