American Craft Beer The Best Craft Beer, Breweries, Bars, Brewpubs, Beer Stores, And Restaurants Serving Serious Beer.
In a bid to tap into growing consumer demand for more information about what’s in their food and drinks, the nation’s leading beer brand is adding prominent nutrition labels to its beer packaging.
Although Bud Light currently features information such as calories in small type on cans and bottles, unlike packaged food and other non-alcoholic drinks, the beer industry isn’t required by law to list calories, saturated fat, sugar and carbohydrates on its products.
But now according to Anheuser-Busch InBev the brewery will complement the limited information currently provided on its cans and bottles with the more exhaustive white nutrition labels on case boxes and six-packs, making it the first US beer brand to do so…
As Bloomberg notes Bud Light’s move comes after Carlsberg, a Danish brewer with limited distribution in the US, took a similar voluntary action in 2015, voluntarily listing ingredients and nutrition information on its beer.
And, not suprisingly, Bud Light’s move towards more transparency also comes with a marketing agenda…And AB InBev hit all the business outlets with its announcement last Friday.
This from Andy Goeler, VP of Marketing, Bud Light…
“While ingredient labels are not required, consumers deserve to know more about their beer. When people walk through a store, they are used to seeing ingredient labels on products in every aisle, except for the beer, wine and spirits aisle.”
“As the lead brand in the category, we believe increasing on-pack transparency will benefit the entire beer category and provide our consumers with the information they expect to see.”
AB InBev is hoping that its new labels will help buoy the Bud Light brand which (along with the beer sector as a whole) has been in a protracted slump for a while now. A slump that no amount of “Dilly, Dilly” commercials or free beer campaigns have been able to turn around.
Beer consumption has been waning in the U.S. as consumers migrate to wine, spirits and possibly pot, or cut down on alcohol altogether. And at the same time beer’s most passionate core consumers have moved on to craft beer further undermining the global brewing giant’s dominance.
Bud Light, which has 110 calories and 6.6 grams of carbs per 12 ounces, has seen its market share slip in recent years… But in spite of that decline it remains “the biggest beer brand in the US with more than double the sales of second-place Coors Light,” according to Bloomberg.
