Russia’s alcohol regulator may ban low-alcohol beverages and energy drinks with excess vitamin content, in line with new health rules, Izvestia daily reported on Wednesday.
The Federal Agency for Alcohol Market Regulation will hold checks on whether such drinks comply with Customs Union (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia) rules governing high vitamin concentration in low-alcohol beverages, the regulator said.
The new measure aims to bar inferior products from entering the common market of the former three Soviet republics.
Drinks with vitamin B12 content above 0.002 mg/100 cu cm, for example, will be banned.
The National Association of Low-Alcohol Producers said the new restrictions will primarily apply to alcoholic energy drinks such as Jaguar and Red Devil. The producers of these drinks normally indicate vitamin content data on their beverage’s labels.
In 2011, Russia produced 31.88 million decaliters of low-alcohol beverages compared with 40.4 million decaliters of wines and 86.3 million decaliters of vodka.