UK May Impose Minimum Pricing on Beer

This week the Home Office announced its own measures, which include a 45p minimum price per unit and an end to bulk discounts. The main target is supermarkets selling beer for less than bottled water. If the minimum price goes through, a can of strong lager could not be priced at less than £1.56, or a bottle of wine below £4.22. The government thinks this could cut drinking by 3.3% and save lives.

Suppliers and most retailers (Tesco is an exception) are outraged at measures which, they say, would penalise the poor and the thrifty without tackling problem drinking. But whatever they do to tippling, they are likely to shape Britain’s £37 billion drinks industry. It is under pressure now. Volumes are falling, prices are rising and competition is fierce. Just what lies ahead if the minimum price becomes law—and it may not: Scotland’s has run into trouble at the European Commission, which thinks it will discriminate against low-cost suppliers from Europe—is unknowable, as no country has yet introduced one.
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