The alcohol industry targets so called Super Consumer for profits.
Big Alcohol Targets 20% of Australians Consuming 75% Of The Alcohol
The alcohol industry depends for its profits on those consumers that use alcohol in excessive amounts, regularly exceeding the recommended daily intake of alcohol, a new report has found.
More than 3.8 million Australians average more than four standard drinks of alcohol a day, twice the recommended health guidelines, and these alcohol users are targeted by the alcohol industry and branded as “super consumers”, according to the latest report from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education.
On this subject, leading scientists in alcohol research Robin Room and Michael Livingston, have published an article in The Conversation, which we share excerpts from, here:
The concentration of alcohol consumption among the heaviest [alcohol users] has actually increased in recent years. The top 10% of consumers accounted for 49% of the consumption in 2001, and this had increased to 53% in 2013.
Big Alcohol calls them super consumers
Those in the business of selling alcohol have long known about the skewed distribution of alcohol consumption in the population. In meetings among people in the industry, those at the top end of the distribution are called the “super consumers“, and they are vital to maintaining or increasing sales.
If all the “super consumers” reduced their drinking to the two-drinks-a-day average recommended by the NHMRC as an upper limit, it has been calculated, based on self-reported consumption, that alcohol sales would fall by 39%.
Impactful self-regulation would go directly against the alcohol industry’s core interest
If all [alcohol users] in Australia were to [consume] within the government guidelines for low-risk [alcohol use], the alcohol market would shrink substantially.
If governments want to reduce alcohol-related harms, they can’t rely on the industry’s commitment to responsible drinking. It’s directly against the industry’s interests for the heaviest [alcohol users] (who make up the majority of their sales) to [consume] less.”