More than 2500 cases have been recalled. Photo / MPI
By Checkpoint of RNZ
Alcohol Healthwatch’s executive director has said he was “horrified” after thousands of Steinlager beer bottles were mislabelled as alcohol-free.
Andrew Galloway said he would like to see a strong regulatory response after the incident.
Food Safety New Zealand deputy director general Vincent Arbuckle told Checkpoint the implications are serious.
“[Lion are] very acutely aware of the fact that people choose for very real reasons to not drink and this is a very serious mistake.”
More than 2500 boxes of 24 beers, more than 60,000 individual beers in total, are now being urgently recalled by Lion NZ after they were wrongly labelled alcohol-free when they are not.
The Steinlager Ultra Low Carb Beer is actually 4.2% alcohol, but has been mislabelled.
Some of those boxes have gone to hospitality venues and will have been broken up.
Food Safety New Zealand said it was potentially very serious, with many consumers choosing to avoid alcohol for religious, cultural and medical reasons.
Arbuckle said there would be a thorough investigation, but the priority was getting the beer back.
“They (Lion) know that and they have apologised publicly and we’ll be working with them to make sure we understand why this has happened and to be sure that it never happens again.”
Lion said it was made aware of the mistake after a customer complained.
The company then found out there was an error in its production run, meaning beer containing 4.2% of alcohol was incorrectly labelled.
Arbuckle said Food Safety New Zealand was now working to spread the message as far as possible.
“They’re working with all the retailers that the product’s been sold through. It’s also gone to hospitality, so they’ll be working with hospitality outlets where the product may have gone.
“[Lion] released a public release yesterday, as did we, and they’re doing their level best to get the message out.”
With some of the beer sold to hospitality outlets, Arbuckle said there was a strong possibility of it being hard to identify.
“You would see a row in a chiller, that’s the non-alcoholic and here’s the alcoholic beers. And it’d be very difficult to sort that out. So outlets will need to be very cautious about trying to make sure they isolate.
“They’ll have records of when they received a product and they’ll have some records of the batch they received. There’ll be ways in which they can check this out, but it is serious.”
Andrew Galloway told Checkpoint the organisation had a number of concerns, with medical being the most stark.
“People who are pregnant might be choosing to drink zero per cent products and the risk of drinking while pregnant is the potential of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a lifelong disability.
“There might be previously heavy drinkers or dependent drinkers. And buying this product that says it’s zero that isn’t could be a trigger into a relapse, which could ultimately cost lives.
“I think there is responsibility, shared responsibility, one from the producer and manufacturer, but also the regulatory regime in which this is allowed to happen.
“I don’t think there are any checks and balances on the products that are out there for sale ... I think monitoring would be good to see ... some more tools when something like this happens that you can follow up with a regulatory response and perhaps send a very strong message out there to other manufacturers that this will not be tolerated.”
He said it was important that the recall response was swift and far-reaching to avoid further harm.
“We are talking about New Zealand’s most harmful drug ... in the situation we are at at the moment there’s over 2500 cases out there.”
Galloway said the development of zero alcohol options meant it was often hard for the consumer to tell the difference in taste and appearance.
He said it was likely someone drinking the alcoholic version with a non-alcoholic label would not be able to tell the difference and end up in a dangerous situation like drink-driving.
“These products do mimic the parent brand ... so someone could quite easily in good faith be thinking they’re doing the right thing and land themselves in trouble.”
Vincent Arbuckle said anyone who thought they might have the incorrectly labelled product should return it.
“Check the best before date. If you’ve got any doubt at all, return that product to where you purchased it from. Advice is to be very cautious with that product; if there’s any doubt at all, don’t drink it, return it to your retailer.”
The recall is for Steinlager Ultra Low Carb beer 24 pack of 330ml bottles.
On the outer carton, the best before date is October 21, 2026, the best before is the same on the bottle.
Steinlager Alcohol Free is only sold in green bottles, not clear bottles, so if a beer in a clear bottle is labelled alcohol free it is incorrectly labelled.
-RNZ