The UK has the fourth-highest alcohol prices in the EU, behind Sweden, Ireland and Finland, according to the latest data from the country’s Office of National Statistics (ONS).
The data shows that UK consumers pay 42.7% more than the EU average, compared to 11% less in France, 16% less in Spain, and 35% less in Bulgaria.
According to the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), this is due to the high levels of duty paid to the UK Treasury and Brexit’s impact on the pound, as well as rising inflation, which is currently at 3%.
“British consumers will find it a hard fact to swallow that they are paying well above average for the luxury of enjoying a drink,” said Miles Beale, chief executive of the WSTA.
“Despite the Chancellor delivering a welcome and much-needed freeze on wine and spirit duty in the November Budget we still have a long way to go to rebalance the UK’s excessively high duty rates,” Beale continued.
Sales Rise
Sales figures from the last WSTA market reports revealed that the average price of a bottle of wine in shops reached £5.56 last year, up 3% on the previous year.
“Our disproportionately high prices are not helping Britain promote itself as an attractive destination for tourists,” added Beale.
“The government should do more to rebalance duty and offer British consumers a fairer deal and tourists to the UK a more attractive proposition, both of which would support the more than 550,000 people working in the UK’s world-leading wine and spirit industry,” he said.
The WSTA has been working with representatives from Europe’s wine and spirits industry, to ensure that prices do not increase further after Brexit.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Sarah Harford. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
