July 15, 2014 Industry news
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is warning shoppers and retailers to be on their guard against buying fake alcohol products from stores.
The advice comes in response to a Daily Mail article claiming that as many as one in five bottles of wine on sale in convenience stores are bogus. It cites an investigation in Staffordshire revealing that 75 out of 415 off-licences were found to have counterfeit alcohol products among their stock by trading standards, while also reporting of a North London store stocking more than 200 phony bottles of Jacob’s Creek wine.
Having told The Independent that the UK Border Force has recently intercepted more than 30,000 fake vodka bottles from Latvia, the IPO is urging consumers to think carefully before buying goods, and to be sceptical of alcohol deals that appear “too good to be true”.
With the full scale of the practice not yet known, the IPO is now working with Interpol to gain an understanding of a problem that not only raises concerns over trade descriptions and health, but is also a drain on the alcoholic beverage sector in terms of money lost through the seizure of bogus goods.
Some local authorities, such as Doncaster Council, have launched campaigns to address rising cases of illegal alcohol being bought and consumed, citing that it can even include harmful chemicals. As well as suggesting that shoppers should only buy alcohol from trusted retailers, Doncaster Council recommends that consumers carefully study labels on alcohol containers before buying as part of its ‘Fight the Fakes’ initiative.
Tell-tale signs of a fake product include a poorly fixed label, no details of a manufacturer or importer, and even misspellings on the container. Indeed, in 2013, it was reported that a consumer in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, noticed a bogus bottle of chardonnay they had bought was labelled as “shardonnay”.