Guest Speaker Presentation

Richard Cochrane, Off Trade Director of Bibendum Wine, was our guest speaker for the event having been involved in several cross-industry working parties addressing the alcohol issue.

The debate discussed the role of the media and the need for the industry to work together to create a coherent message for consumers on safe levels of alcohol consumption.

Listen to the debate output from Richard Cochrane

A key focus during the event was the discrepancy among different European governments on safe alcohol consumption guidelines – discrepancies which could have a significant impact on the value of the alcoholic drinks market:

Alcohol Consumption per capita (age 15+) adjusted to take into account the teetotal population of each country paints a more accurate view on how much people consume in each nation. When benchmarked against national government guidelines, more countries are over-consuming than under-consuming. If each nation were to adhere to their guidelines the market would decline modestly by 5.4% representing a loss of £12bn.

On the flip side consumption would fall dramatically if drinkers across the 19 nations held to UK government guidelines (14 units per week for women and 21 units per week for men). In quantitative terms, sales of alcohol would decline by 24.2% which equates to a loss in value of around £55bn.

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