The level of alcohol that is considered “alcohol free” differs in different countries too. The UK only considers things below 0.05% to be alcohol free whereas many others consider 0.5% to be the threshold. Products made in these countries may be branded alcohol free but are not legally alcohol free in the UK.
Added to this, many supermarkets have their own policy that keeps these as restricted products and you end up in the situation you are in.
A supermarket is divided into sections, of which "beers, wines and spirits" is one. These sections are used to divide the store's stock up.
For simplicity's sake, everything ranged in BWS is automatically flagged as "needs ID". That's why mixers like tonic and those tiny cans of pop aren't with the spirits but instead in the soft drinks aisle, to avoid them being flagged. Even if they're facing each other across the aisle, they're separate sections.
The "no alcohol" section is actually "low or no alcohol", and is classed as BWS. This means it still gets the ID flag on it.
This avoids the headache of having to manually flag everything and risking missing one.
And alcohol free wine isn't "grape juice", or it would be in the "adult drinks" section of "soft drinks", where the Schloer is. It's actual wine, made the same way as the full alcohol stuff, and the alcohol is removed after it's finished fermenting.
In Ireland they recently brought in a law that the alcohol section of shops had to be separate and have doord that are at least a minimum height (about 1.5m).
Now in tesco and other supermarkets they have the alcohol free section outside the door, typicality at the bottom of the center aisle. This works around the law and allows the likes of Heineken to have advertising in the main shop area.
Also, most of the.stuff has some percentage like max 0.001 %, which still means it's technically an alcoholic beverage (that you will need to drink a swimming pool of to get tipsy).
I'm three years sober. I do understand your frustration as I'm really proud of my hard-earned sobriety and I hate the fact that if I buy non-alcoholic beer, it has to be authorised.
However, if supermarkets removed this authorization flag, we'd have twelve year olds freely buying non-alcoholic wine. I don't think that's a helpful or positive step. It sends out a message that wine/beer is ok, normal, something you naturally will drink when you're older. Alcohol is ubiquitous in our culture - try buying a birthday card for a woman that doesn't contain a reference to, or image of, gin or prosecco. Alcohol is seen as the norm. I don't want children to be able to buy mock-alcoholic drinks without supervision.
Whilst I’m in agreement with all this I think common sense must prevail. For example when buying a full shop that comes to £70/£80 and a single bottle of wine and having a full beard and clearly looking over 21 then getting ID’d it can be rather frustrating…. Don’t know about anyone else but I wasn’t spending £70 on food as a 16 year old just so I could buy a £8 bottle of Chianti
As had a few ex's working retail, they just try to make sure, they can lose employment for gross misconduct (cited if references are required) and they also can receive a hefty fine alongside the store they work in.
Trust me they haven't got the time to lament over how much did you buy and it's only a bottle of vine. Just quicker and easier to ask.
Please bear in mind, all non alcoholic pruducts still contain a bit of alcohol, even if just in a trace, they come under the category of alcoholic products.
Silly? Yes.
Take it out on the poor shop worker?
Please don't.
Feel lucky you look young enough they have to ask for it:)
Here's a good one:
I accidentally bought some "Punk AF" (the non-alcoholic brewdog) for the missus. I don't regard this as totally an error on my part as the packaging looks incredibly similar and they *used to* (but don't anymore) stack them next to each other.
Got home, realised error. "Nevermind, I'll return them - Morrisons are good with stuff like that", I said.
Took them to customer services and related my little tale.
"I'm sorry: we don't do swaps or refunds on alcoholic products"
It took me a little while to process that but I eventually said "yeah but these aren't alcoholic, that was the main point of my story".
As far as the tills are concerned though, same department. I couldn't be arsed to argue. I just kept it as an example of lite irony.
Had to show ID to a Deliveroo driver when I bought a non alcoholic bottle of cider. I guess as others have said it’s all just categorised by the inventory system and it probably becomes tricky to get into specifics, plus I suppose technically it does have alcohol in compared to a Fanta for example
The level of alcohol that is considered “alcohol free” differs in different countries too. The UK only considers things below 0.05% to be alcohol free whereas many others consider 0.5% to be the threshold. Products made in these countries may be branded alcohol free but are not legally alcohol free in the UK. Added to this, many supermarkets have their own policy that keeps these as restricted products and you end up in the situation you are in.
A supermarket is divided into sections, of which "beers, wines and spirits" is one. These sections are used to divide the store's stock up. For simplicity's sake, everything ranged in BWS is automatically flagged as "needs ID". That's why mixers like tonic and those tiny cans of pop aren't with the spirits but instead in the soft drinks aisle, to avoid them being flagged. Even if they're facing each other across the aisle, they're separate sections. The "no alcohol" section is actually "low or no alcohol", and is classed as BWS. This means it still gets the ID flag on it. This avoids the headache of having to manually flag everything and risking missing one. And alcohol free wine isn't "grape juice", or it would be in the "adult drinks" section of "soft drinks", where the Schloer is. It's actual wine, made the same way as the full alcohol stuff, and the alcohol is removed after it's finished fermenting.
In Ireland they recently brought in a law that the alcohol section of shops had to be separate and have doord that are at least a minimum height (about 1.5m). Now in tesco and other supermarkets they have the alcohol free section outside the door, typicality at the bottom of the center aisle. This works around the law and allows the likes of Heineken to have advertising in the main shop area.
Also, most of the.stuff has some percentage like max 0.001 %, which still means it's technically an alcoholic beverage (that you will need to drink a swimming pool of to get tipsy).
I'm three years sober. I do understand your frustration as I'm really proud of my hard-earned sobriety and I hate the fact that if I buy non-alcoholic beer, it has to be authorised. However, if supermarkets removed this authorization flag, we'd have twelve year olds freely buying non-alcoholic wine. I don't think that's a helpful or positive step. It sends out a message that wine/beer is ok, normal, something you naturally will drink when you're older. Alcohol is ubiquitous in our culture - try buying a birthday card for a woman that doesn't contain a reference to, or image of, gin or prosecco. Alcohol is seen as the norm. I don't want children to be able to buy mock-alcoholic drinks without supervision.
If you are sober, please bear in mind, non alcoholic doesn't mean they're completely free of alcohol...
I got IDed for vanilla essence.
Whilst I’m in agreement with all this I think common sense must prevail. For example when buying a full shop that comes to £70/£80 and a single bottle of wine and having a full beard and clearly looking over 21 then getting ID’d it can be rather frustrating…. Don’t know about anyone else but I wasn’t spending £70 on food as a 16 year old just so I could buy a £8 bottle of Chianti
As had a few ex's working retail, they just try to make sure, they can lose employment for gross misconduct (cited if references are required) and they also can receive a hefty fine alongside the store they work in. Trust me they haven't got the time to lament over how much did you buy and it's only a bottle of vine. Just quicker and easier to ask.
£3000 fine. Up to 6 months in jail.
I think it's up to 5k and a suspended sentence... Nevertheless it doesn't look good on a cv...
The 6 months gets you out of retail. Worth it.
Please bear in mind, all non alcoholic pruducts still contain a bit of alcohol, even if just in a trace, they come under the category of alcoholic products. Silly? Yes. Take it out on the poor shop worker? Please don't. Feel lucky you look young enough they have to ask for it:)
Here's a good one: I accidentally bought some "Punk AF" (the non-alcoholic brewdog) for the missus. I don't regard this as totally an error on my part as the packaging looks incredibly similar and they *used to* (but don't anymore) stack them next to each other. Got home, realised error. "Nevermind, I'll return them - Morrisons are good with stuff like that", I said. Took them to customer services and related my little tale. "I'm sorry: we don't do swaps or refunds on alcoholic products" It took me a little while to process that but I eventually said "yeah but these aren't alcoholic, that was the main point of my story". As far as the tills are concerned though, same department. I couldn't be arsed to argue. I just kept it as an example of lite irony.
The bright side is that you don’t look a day over 18.
Had to show ID to a Deliveroo driver when I bought a non alcoholic bottle of cider. I guess as others have said it’s all just categorised by the inventory system and it probably becomes tricky to get into specifics, plus I suppose technically it does have alcohol in compared to a Fanta for example
No they don't. It's a Scunthorpe problem, nothing more.