Alcohol Issues Special Edition Newsletter
Big Alcohol Exposed 2025: A Web of Interference
Big Alcohol Is In Crisis and Turmoil – And It Shows
The public launch of “Big Alcohol Exposed Report 2025: A Web of Interference” revealed how commercial strain, declining consumption, and shifting social norms drove a sharp escalation in alcohol industry interference throughout 2025. What emerged is not a collection of scandals, but a coherent global system designed to delay policy, pollute public debate, and protect profits at the expense of health, equity, and development.
Why the New Report Matters
The 2025 report documents how multinational alcohol corporations and their front groups, and lobbyists, responded to mounting pressure by intensifying political interference.
Based on systematic global monitoring of more than 1,300 documented cases and a state-of-the-science review of 77 independent peer-reviewed studies, the evidence shows that alcohol industry interference is deliberate, coordinated, and global.
As Kristina Šperková stated at the launch event:
Big Alcohol Exposed exists to make alcohol industry practices visible and traceable, so policy decisions serve the public interest rather than vested commercial interests.”
Kristina Šperková, International President, Movendi International
Monitoring interference, she stressed, is itself a public health intervention.
Based on systematic global monitoring of more than 1,300 documented cases and a state-of-the-science review of 77 independent peer-reviewed studies, the report reveals:
- Alcohol industry interference is deliberate, coordinated, and global.
- Alcohol industry practices function as commercial determinants of health, shaping markets, norms, and policy space.
- Escalating interference reflects commercial vulnerability, not sector resilience.
- Public support for effective alcohol policy solutions is consistently higher than political assumptions polluted by alcohol industry narratives.
Inside the Public Launch: What We Learned
On January 21, 2026, Movendi International convened policymakers, researchers, journalists, UN actors, and civil society leaders for a global public webinar examining how alcohol industry interference intensified across regions in 2025.
The discussion combined:
- global monitoring data,
- peer-reviewed science,
- academic analysis, and
- first-hand advocacy experience from Europe and South Africa.
Together, they painted a clear picture: health policy space is under sustained alcohol industry pressure – and protecting it is now a democratic imperative.
How Interference Operates in Practice
The patterns documented in the Big Alcohol Exposed Report 2025 materialise through concrete policy arenas, institutional arrangements, and political moments, adapting to local contexts while following a recognisable and predictable global playbook.
The following examples from Europe and South Africa show how alcohol industry actors gain access, shape narratives, and delay evidence-based alcohol policy in real time.
Brussels and the European Policy Arena
Rebecka Öberg detailed how alcohol industry actors increasingly seek access to policy-adjacent and civil society spaces in Brussels.
Cultural framing – especially wine presented as “European heritage” – has become a political tool to portray regulation as hostility and dismiss advocacy for people’s health as ideological. These narratives fed directly into debates such as the EU wine package, creating political cover for exemptions and regulatory carve-outs.
We see a clear strategy to normalise alcohol industry presence in civil society and research spaces to gain legitimacy,” she warned.
Rebecka Öberg, European Policy Officer, Movendi Sweden
South Africa: Institutional Capture in Action
From South Africa, Susan Goldstein presented findings from freedom-of-information requests examining the stalled Draft Liquor Amendment Bill.
Fourteen alcohol industry organisations dominated statutory consultation processes at NEDLAC, occupying seats across five key committees, while health and community voices were marginalised – even the Department of Health itself.
Despite around 85% public support for higher alcohol taxes, industry-driven illicit-trade scare mongering dominated media coverage and helped freeze reform.
Industry-dominated consultation structures systematically exclude health and community voices while protecting commercial interests.”
Susan Goldstein, Professor and member of the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance
Learning From Tobacco: The Academic Lens
May van Schalkwyk situated alcohol industry interference within the longer history of tobacco industry tactics.
Industry-funded science, front groups, and youth “education” programmes promote the flawed concept of “personal responsibility”, obscure the role of marketing and availability in driving alcohol harm, and increase uncertainty about well-established risks such as cancer.
Her conclusion was stark:
Alcohol industry practices should be treated as objects of public health surveillance, just like disease or environmental exposures.”
May van Schalkwyk, Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh
What the Report Finds
Presenting the report’s core findings, Pierre Andersson underscored that 2025 revealed a global system of interference, not isolated misconduct.
Three dominant, interlinked patterns defined industry conduct:
- The illicit-alcohol smokescreen – exaggerated and unverified claims used to derail taxation and population-level policy.
- Infiltration of daily life through digital systems – alcohol promotion embedded in streaming platforms, social media, influencers, and ultra-fast delivery.
- The responsibility illusion – shifting blame onto individuals while opposing effective policy and obscuring commercial drivers of harm.
Exposing these patterns opens space for more ambitious, evidence-based alcohol policy,” Andersson noted.
Pierre Andersson, Senior Alcohol Policy Advocacy Advisor, Movendi International
Key Takeaways for Advocates and Policymakers
Treat monitoring as a public health intervention. Systematic monitoring and documentation of industry practices exposes patterns, counters misinformation, and equips decision-makers to act in the public interest.
Recognise industry aggression as a sign of vulnerability, not strength. Escalating interference reflects a declining growth model and rising political risk for alcohol corporations.
Act upstream to protect policy integrity. Alcohol industry influence begins long before legislation is drafted, through agenda-setting, framing, attacks on evidence, and polluted public discourse. Robust conflict-of-interest safeguards are essential.
Prioritise structural solutions that deliver results. Alcohol taxation, limits on availability, and comprehensive protections against marketing remain the most effective, publicly supported, and achievable alcohol policy solutions to prevent and reduce alcohol harm.
What Needs to Happen Now
Speakers converged on clear priorities:
- Treat alcohol industry conduct as a standing object of public health surveillance.
- Protect policy spaces through robust conflict-of-interest safeguards.
- Move upstream in shaping the debate, pre-empting alcohol industry frames with value-based communication and evidence.
- Act in the digital information environment, where marketing and influence now operate.
- Make public support visible to break political inertia.
The message was consistent: escalating interference signals vulnerability, not strength.
A Defining Moment for Alcohol Policy
The Big Alcohol Exposed Report 2025 concludes that public policy leadership now determines whether industry crisis entrenches harm – or accelerates progress toward healthier, more equitable societies.
Evidence-based alcohol policy solutions already deliver results. Public support is broad and high. What is needed is the political will to protect policymaking from vested commercial interests.
Read the report. Use the findings. Defend the public interest.