UK industry executives have disputed the idea of banning the sale of low-and-no alcohol drinks to under-18s.
Last week, a UK health minister Ashley Dalton reiterated the Government planned to review the “access” to low-and-no products, including “prohibiting sales” to those aged under 18.
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“The Government has committed to tackling harmful levels of alcohol consumption through exploring options to encourage consumers to reduce their alcohol intake by substituting standard strength drinks with no- and low-alcohol alternatives,” Dalton, the UK’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention, said in an answer to a parliamentary question on 5 January.
“The Government will explore measures to regulate access to no- and low-alcohol products in line with other alcoholic beverages, including prohibiting sales to individuals under the age of 18 years old.
The answer echoed similar comments she made in Parliament last November and underlined plans the Government had announced last summer. In November, Dalton suggested low-and-no products “can normalise drinking, and become a gateway to alcohol consumption”, adding: “Earlier alcohol use initiation is linked to a higher risk of harmful drinking patterns later in life.”
Laura Willoughby, the founder of alcohol-free retailer and research group Club Soda said today (16 January) the “‘gateway’ argument keeps coming up but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny”.
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By GlobalDataShe added: “There is no credible evidence that alcohol-free drinks cause people to start drinking alcohol. In fact, the strongest studies, including large-scale research from Japan and the Netherlands, show alcohol is far more often the gateway to alcohol-free drinks, not the other way round.”
A survey carried out by Club Soda with 2,000 UK adults in October 2024 found 94% of people drank an alcoholic beer before alcohol-free beer, Willoughby said.
Tim Blake, the CEO of alcohol-free spirits business Crossip, told Just Drinks he thought a ban would be “largely unworkable”.
“The first issue is definition. ‘Low and no’ is a huge and increasingly diverse category,” Blake said. “Are we talking about direct replacements like alcohol-free beer or alcohol-free versions of established spirits? Or are we talking about the much wider group of adult soft drinks and flavour-led products that don’t position themselves as substitutes at all?
“More broadly, alcoholism is a serious social issue… But this feels like a distraction. There are far better ways to spend time, money and legislative effort tackling the real causes of alcohol harm than creating vague rules for an already poorly defined category. Without clear definitions and evidence, this kind of regulation risks being blunt, confusing, and ultimately ineffective.”
Focus on category expansion, says Portman Group
The Government laid out its intention to bring in rules “to restrict access” of low-and-no drinks in its 10 Year Health Plan for England, was was launched in July last year
In this plan, it also included an intention to launch a consultation on adjusting the upper strength limit for alcohol-free drinks to 0.5% to align with “international standards”.
The Portman Group, a self-regulatory body set up by companies operating in the UK drinks industry, said the Government should “focus on supporting the expansion of the category” by updating the guidance on how to describe alcohol-free products.
It added: “The industry has already taken proactive steps to enforce a sales ban and apply Challenge 25 to these products in both shops and bars. This, alongside our marketing guidance to producers, makes it clear that these products should only be marketed to adults.
“We remain alert and continue to review emerging evidence but have yet to see any substantial proof to back up claims that these products act as a gateway to drinking alcohol.”
An ‘appropriate’ move
Not everyone has responded to the proposal negatively. Amanda Thomson, the founder and CEO of non-alcoholic wine producer Noughty, said a ban “makes perfect sense” and that it was “appropriate”.
“It’s a bit like non alcoholic beer the same way,” she said. “I don’t think kids should be introduced to things that look look like they might be alcohol. That’s not a healthy thing to build a society.”
She added: “If we have something that looks like alcohol, then yes, it should act like alcohol. I think it should all be cleaned up.”
