Announcement date
The Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) Board approved Proposal P1059 - Energy labelling on alcoholic beverages on 7 April 2025 and on 25 July 2025 at the Food Ministers’ Meeting, Ministers agreed to not seek a review.
Link to announcement
The announcement can be found in the communiqué of outcomes from the Food Ministers' Meeting held on 25 July 2025. The approval report and supporting document can be found on the FSANZ web page for Proposal P1059.
Problem being addressed
Unlike most packaged food and beverages, the majority of labels on packaged alcoholic beverages do not provide information about energy content to enable consumers to make informed choices in line with dietary guidelines. That could potentially hinder a consumer from achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight.
Available evidence suggests 69% of consumers support energy labelling on alcoholic beverages, and yet energy content information is only included on the label of around 2% of alcoholic beverage Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) via a voluntary nutrition information panel (NIP) (and a further 6% of SKUs include that information because a voluntary claim triggers the requirement for a NIP). Therefore, the market is underproviding this information that a range of consumers would value.
Proposal
The Decision Regulation Impact Statement (Decision RIS) considers a mandatory approach for the provision of standardised energy content information on alcoholic beverages. A mandatory requirement can only be made through amending the Food Standards Code.
Options considered include:
- Option 1: Status Quo
- Option 2: Require an energy statement of prescribed format containing the number of servings per package, the average quantity of a beverage in a serving in mL, and the average energy content as a quantity per serving and quantity per 100 mL
- Option 3: (Preferred) Require an energy statement (consistent with option 2) with the addition of standard drink information; and the inclusion of standard drink information in multi-serve packages labelled with a NIP.
Under the preferred Option 3, the main costs would be label change costs to industry, estimated as a one-off cost between $339 and $444 million. However, readily accessible on-label energy content information can enable consumers to make informed purchasing and consumption decisions in-line with dietary guidelines and hence help consumers manage their energy intake and body weight. The number of standard drinks in a serving would inform consumers about how a serving size relates to a standard drink. Together this could improve overall health and quality of life for some alcoholic beverage consumers.
While acknowledging the caveats involved in making the following estimation, FSANZ estimates that only a 0.13% to 0.18% reduction in obesity and overweight-related health costs over ten years is needed to offset the main costs that have been identified, that is the costs of changing labels under preferred Option 3.
To help minimise costs to industry of the proposed energy statement, FSANZ proposes to allow industry three years to adopt the proposed new labelling requirements.
Assessed Impact Analysis outcome
Compliant Decision RIS
The OIA considers that the consultation that has been undertaken to date is equivalent to a Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (Consultation RIS) under the Regulatory Impact Analysis Guide for Ministers Meetings and National Standard Setting Bodies (the Guide), as such only a Decision RIS was required. FSANZ provided the OIA with a letter outlining how the consultation process was equivalent to a Consultation RIS.