Brewers asked for permission to sell beer with damaged labeling

The mandatory labeling requirement in the production and sale of beer has been in effect since April 2023; Then it became necessary to label beer in kegs, starting in October the rule was extended to glass and plastic containers and starting in January 2024, codes must be applied. even beer cans and other types of packaging.

It is impossible to relabel products if the unique code is applied incorrectly, the manufacturers note in the letter. If for large companies the percentage of defects ranges between 0.02% and 1.3%, small companies (for example, craft breweries) can lose a tenth of their products due to incorrect labeling, reports the publication.

Products with a defective code cannot be taken out of circulation (i.e. sold to consumers) and retailers return products on which excise taxes have already been paid to the manufacturer, according to a letter from the manufacturers. As a result, breweries not only incur logistics costs, but also lose money in government fees. Returning products to the plant for repackaging and relabeling is often complicated by the short shelf life of beer as a beverage, Igor Khavsky, chairman of the Russian Support commission for the production and circulation of beer products, told Forbes.

High-quality coding requires manufacturers to use more expensive materials and technologies when labeling products, Dmitry Smirnov, director of the Afanasy brewery, told the publication. These requirements lead to an increase in product prices: in March 2024, when stocks of unlabeled beer began to run out, manufacturers announced an increase in beer prices of up to 15% due to the high cost of labeling equipment.