The current campaign to require a cancer warning on alcohol containers will likely be hampered by the complex and thorny congressional action required to update the health warning statement. Nonetheless, alcohol industry members will need to carefully implement public relations, legislative, and litigation strategies to respond to this emphasis on the potential harms related to alcohol consumption.
The National Association of Wine Retailers (NAWR) has published a paper that provides a comprehensive overview of U.S. regulation of alcohol sales, the challenges within the current system, and possibly beneficial regulatory changes.
A recent study has demonstrated the superior capability of “electronic tongue” (e-tongue) technology when detecting spoilage microorganisms in wine, in comparison to traditional human sensory evaluation.
Traditionally, food safety issues associated with alcoholic beverages focus on chemical or physical hazards from the processing line. Intoxication with alcoholic beverages, as it relates to food safety, is less reported in the literature. However, the addition of cheap methanol to illicitly produced liquor—a rising issue in Asia—is increasingly being studied as a food safety and food adulteration issue.
