As this blog has touched upon before, the contents of alcoholic beverages shouldn’t be a mystery to consumers if one is to expect trust to grow between a brand and its audience. And yet, alcohol and wine labels that outline every ingredient the same way that food labels do are not compulsory, although a new ruling from the Alcohol Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau (TTB) may indicate this becoming the norm at some point in the future.
A TTB press release described this new document, which is available for viewing online, as “guidelines” with a focus on their voluntary nature. All the same, some of the ways in which serving sizes might be broken down are listed, along with the items that consumers might be most eager to see, such as calorie and alcohol amounts, the latter of which has multiple options in its display.
The TTB is a sub-group of the Department of the Treasury, which has the power to issue these kinds of provisions, and though displaying alcohol content on wine labels involves other specifics, the servings facts promoted by this change could also be used in advertisements or in ways that benefit the company.
However, the text of the ruling also mentions that this requirement is “…merely a statement of average analysis, which TTB already permits, with the addition of a title, a serving size that reflects how the product is typically consumed, information about the number of servings per container, a specified format, and the option of providing information about alcohol content.”
Making labels that follow these basic principles can also be a goal for companies to pursue on their own, particularly with the convenience offered by a color label printer.
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