Hite Jinro faces backlash over ‘zero sugar’ phrase on label

[Photo by MK DB]

The beer and liquor maker Hite Jinro is facing growing criticism over its latest soju product, Jinro Zero Sugar, as it placed a marketing phrase on the bottle directly on top of the drink’s nutrition label.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety called the move inappropriate marketing and is considering amendments to relevant regulations as Hite Jinro’s marketing makes it difficult for consumers to read the label properly and undermines the fundamental purpose of the labeling system.

The alcoholic beverage at issue has the phrase “zero sugar” overlapping the detailed information about the drink that is provided in the nutrition label. According to industry sources on Thursday, the marketing phrase has recently been placed on top of the label for all bottles sold at restaurants and convenience stores, which was not there when the drink was launched in January.

The food authority is considering action against Hite Jinro to prevent its actions from becoming precedent. “It is deemed that Hite Jinro’s marketing phrase harms consumers’ readability. We plan to direct the company to not obscure the nutrition label,” said an official at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. “To prevent similar cases in the future, we’ll seek revisions to relevant regulations to ensure that marketing phrases or images do not obscure the label,” added the official.

The change is believed to have come following the brewery’s new, aggressive marketing strategy in the face of fiercer competition. Chum Churum Saero, another low-calory soju made by rival Lotte Chilsung Beverage Co., has become popular recently, selling more than 100 million bottles in the past seven months after its launch.

Hite Jinro claims that it simply added the “zero sugar” phrase to help consumers be aware that the product does not contain sugar.

The “zero sugar” phrase is about 4 centimeters wide by 1 centimeter tall, placed within the 5.5 cm by 3 cm label, excluding the section for the barcode and the cautionary label about alcohol. Written in blue on a white background, the marketing phrase does make it difficult to read the ingredients or other information about the alcoholic drink below. Part of the obscured nutritional information includes the fact that the drink contains erythritol, an artificial sweetener that reportedly may increase risks of cardiovascular diseases, according to the academic journal Nature Medicine.

“Nutritional labels are there to provide consumers with information. Obscuring the information on them undermines the fundamental reason for a labeling system,” said an official at the Consumers Union of Korea, calling for an immediate remedy so that consumers can clearly see the ingredients and contents in their products.

Another consumer organization raised concerns, as well. “The ‘zero sugar’ phrase on the food label is likely to hinder consumer decisions,” said a Consumers Korea official.

It is unusual for an alcoholic drinks company to paste a marketing statement on top of a nutrition label, as nutrition labels are required in order to guarantee consumers’ right to know, and thus are generally considered inviolable.

Indeed, the national food authority strictly controls and monitors labels, including the size, spacing and color of the text in a nutrition label. For example, in one case the authority refused to grant approval for the import of a certain alcoholic beverage on grounds that a space was missing between a number and measurement to show the volume of the drink on the label.

“The food authority is working on expanding consumers’ right to know, by requiring calories on alcoholic beverages and inserting QR codes that link to food information of relevant products,” said an industry insider. “Hite Jinro’s recent marketing choice goes against the direction aimed by the food authority.”

Some note that Hite Jinro used a loophole to take advantage of a regulatory gap that implies that there is no problem with covering up the nutrition label on domestically manufactured foods or beverages.

Under the current regulatory framework, there is no clear reference for obscuring food information on a label with marketing phrases. Despite the level of detail regulating the background color and text size on a label, there is no legal reference that bans an attempt to obscure the information on a label for domestically-made food products. Regulations on imported food labeling, in contrast, explicitly states that the key information, including the name of the product and its expiration date, that are included on the original container or packaging must not be obscured.