| Date | Fri 07:31 |
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Kane’s Beverage News Daily
News that Matters . . . When It Matters . . . for Bev/Al Executives
| Volume 13, No. 95 | Edited by Joel Whitaker | Friday, May 12, 2017 |
What You Need to Know This Morning:
Heineken Intros 0% Alcohol, 69-Calorie Lager
Heineken this morning introduced its latest innovation, Heineken 0.0, a non-alcoholic lager brewed with a unique recipe for a distinct balanced taste – and only 69 calories per 33cl bottle.
We could not immediately determine whether the U.S. is one of the 14 markets in which Heineken 0.0 is being introduced this year.
The brand’s iconic green label has been turned blue – the color associated with the alcohol-free category. The integrated launch campaign includes a TV commercial, digital and experiential activations plus on and off trade promotions.
Heineken’s Master Brewers created the new zero-alcohol beer using only natural ingredients.
“Removing alcohol from regular 5% Heineken would have been easy, but it wouldn’t deliver the best tasting non-alcoholic beer. Heineken 0.0 is brewed from scratch and has a perfectly balanced taste with refreshing fruity notes and soft malty body,” Willem van Waesberghe, Global Craft and Brew Master at Heineken, said.
Gianluca Di Tondo, Senior Director Global Heineken Brand, said:
“As pioneering brewers, we are committed to introducing new and innovative products to meet consumer needs. The zero alcohol segment in Europe and Russia grew with a 5% CAGR between 2010 to 2015. We expect this strong growth to continue, driven by good innovation on taste, as it already has in Spain, Germany and Austria. Our ambition is to lead the category development in the markets where non-alcoholic beer is still small, but has growth potential, with a premium proposition.”
Heineken will use its partnership with Formula 1 to give Heineken 0.0 a highly visible launch platform at the Spanish Grand Prix, in Barcelona on 14th May. Alongside the Grand Prix activation, Heineken 0.0 launches with an integrated marketing program showcasing the campaign tagline, ‘Open to all’. The premise is based around the inclusiveness of Heineken 0.0 to all people, moments and drinking occasions, which might call for a beer but not for alcohol.
Heineken 0.0 is available for purchase in both on and off-trade in different retail channels depending on market requirements. It comes in 25cl, 30cl and 33cl bottles, 33cl and 50cl can and 20L David keg, depending on the market standards.
Willamette Valley Posts Lower Profit in Quarter, Sales Rise
Willamette Valley Vineyards earned $183,297, or 4 cents a share, in the first quarter, down from $408,995, or 8 cents a share, for the like prior-year period. That’s a 55.2% decrease in profit, and that company attributed the decline to a bulk wine inventory write down of $75,918 in first quarter 2017.
Sales rose 6.4% to $4,450,545. The primary reasons for this increase are an increase in direct sales of $87,644 and an increase in sales through distributors of $179,132 in the 2017 first quarter.
Jim Bernau, founder and president, said “We are continuing to implement our strategic plan by making the necessary financial, vineyard, winemaking and staffing investments to sustainably engage wine enthusiasts and provide them world class wines and winery experiences.”
Blue Mountain Brewery Funds Planting of 8,000 Trees
Blue Mountain Brewery, Afton, Va., partnered with GreenTrees, of The Plains, Va., to plant 8,703 trees in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.
With every pull of the tap handle a tree was planted during the one-week Ales to Acorns program. The goal of Ales to Acorns was to provide patrons of Blue Mountain Brewery the opportunity to celebrate Earth Week in a way that made a material impact on the world and at the same time highlight the interconnectedness of beer, water, trees, and climate change.
Mandi Smack of Blue Mountain Brewery said, “we were thrilled to team up with GreenTrees and the Arbor Day Foundation for the Ales to Acorns fundraiser. Since opening in 2007, we have been very conscious of how our operations affect Mother Earth. This was by far the biggest and most successful fundraiser we have done at Blue Mountain. We hope that our contribution will help offset the impact our business has on this beautiful Earth.”
Customers also had the opportunity to make additional contributions to plant even more trees than those associated with the beer they purchased in Blue Mountain Brewery’s taproom. On two evenings patrons were treated to a viewing of the Emmy-winning film, “Chasing Ice”, which chronicles, through time-lapse photography, the extreme impacts of climate change on glaciated regions around the world. “I walked away from the event having had a good time and learned so much. I wish there were more opportunities like this,” Commented one attendee at the Ales to Acorns event.
By connecting beer sales with tree planting consumers have the power to change the world for the better just by enjoying their beer of choice. Collectively, all of those actions make a big impact. “It is our hope that more businesses will follow the lead of Blue Mountain Brewery in offering consumers a way improve the health of our environment in the normal course of business,” said Sarah McDonough GreenTrees marketing director.
F.Y.I. —
EpiPens Effective 50 Months After Expiration Date
EpiPens are effective far longer – even four years or more – than the expiration date states on their labels, a study by F. Lee Cantrell, the director of the California Poison Control System in San Diego, finds. That, of course, is great news, except for one essential fact: while they would most likely work, no one will take the risk to officially guarantee they will work.
The bottom line: Cantrell’s research effectively determined that an expired EpiPen can work as a back-up – if a newer model isn’t available. Which means for those who must treat an allergic reaction, using an expired version is better than not using it at all.
“If my kid’s having a life-threatening reaction, and I had no alternative, absolutely I would use it without hesitation,” said Cantrell, speaking to Reuters. “I don’t think there’s a physician in the world who would rebut that.”
Mr. Cantrell and his team tested 40 EpiPens in all (including nine EpiPen Jrs) that had exceeded their expiration dates, ranging from 1 month to 50 months past the stamped date. All but two were at least 84% potent with sufficient concentrations of epinephrine to be considered effective in preventing anaphylactic shock.
Epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, is effective as a muscle relaxer while opening airways to aid breathing for those experiencing severe allergic reactions.
The team’s research was published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
“Our data show that EpiPen products can retain substantial amounts of epinephrine well beyond their expiration dates,” the researchers wrote in their study. “Although we observed declining concentrations of epinephrine over time, we expect that the dose available 50 months after expiration would still provide a beneficial pharmacologic response.”
The researchers warned, however, that if it’s observed through the product’s window that the drug has changed color to brownish-yellow, it should not be used regardless of date. – American Council on Science & Health.
Half of Antibiotic Prescriptions Unnecessary: Study
Nearly half of seniors who go to a family doctor about a cold or other non-bacterial respiratory infection leave with a prescription for an unnecessary antibiotic, say Canadian researchers who aim to prevent the public health harm caused by such overuse.
Antibiotics do not work against the viruses that cause upper respiratory tract infections such as the common cold and acute bronchitis.
The overuse of antibiotics for respiratory infections threatens a vital tool physicians rely on to treat severe bloodstream infections, say doctors and researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto and Western University in London, Ont.
In Monday’s online issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers looked at antibiotic prescribing among 185,014 people aged 66 or older who went to a primary care physician in 2012 in Ontario.
“Almost half of people where the doctor felt that this was probably nonbacterial still got an antibiotic anyway,” said Dr. Michael Silverman, author of the study and chair of infectious diseases at Western University.
“We think that this is occurring out across Canada and it’s occurring in the United States,” he said.
The investigators expect that their findings on antibiotic prescribing would also apply in other age groups. They focused on seniors because they had access to data on nearly all prescriptions for those aged 66 and older.
Patients with possible bacterial infection were excluded from the analysis, as were those with cancer, patients who were immunocompromised or living in a long-term care facility.
Silverman was spurred to study overuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics partly because it’s associated with potentially severe side-effects such as diarrhea from C. difficile, a huge issue in Canada and around the world, he said.
“We also now realize these drugs can lead to irregular heartbeats and sudden death. Some of them can lead to tendon rupture. Some of them can lead to drug interactions and have people end up in the emergency room.”
The most common infections flagged for unnecessary antibiotic use were:
- Common cold (53%).
- Acute bronchitis (31%).
- Acute sinusitis (14%).
- Acute laryngitis (2%).
The researchers don’t want to single out physicians for blame, but said they wanted to see what characteristics helped to predict antibiotic prescribing for nonbacterial infections, in order to target education and prevent the problem.
Time Pressures on Doctors
For instance, the researchers found antibiotic prescribing tended to be more common among family physicians hurrying to see many patients.
When doctors are surveyed about why they write antibiotic prescriptions for nonbacterial infections, they often say it’s because of time pressures to see more and more patients.
Silverman said this isn’t the first example of a financial penalty faced by physicians who take the time to counsel patients.
But steps can be taken to encourage doctors to spend the time. For example, when health officials put a priority on encouraging patients to quit smoking, a billing code specifically for counselling time was introduced, Silverman said.
Decision Fatigue
But it’s also possible that “decision fatigue” sets in for physicians who have to say no all day to patients asking for antibiotic prescriptions. Silverman said U.S. research suggests doctors tend to prescribe more antibiotics later in the day.
The majority of prescriptions in the new study, 70 per cent, were for broad-spectrum antibiotics that are associated with harms to patients and antibiotic resistance, the researchers found. The other 30 per cent were for narrower penicillin-type antibiotics.
Search for Rapid Test
The high rate of broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing in this low-risk group with nonbacterial respiratory infections “is strongly suggestive of inappropriate prescribing,” the study’s authors wrote.
One limitation of the study is that the researchers lacked detailed data on the patients’ clinical picture or the doctors’ motivation to prescribe antibiotics.
In 2007 in Quebec, Dr. Genevieve Cadieux and Robyn Tamblyn, a professor in the Department of Medicine and the Department Of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at McGill University, also looked at predictors of inappropriate prescribing by primary care physicians.
Tamblyn said she sees why physicians can be cautious at times when faced with a patient with an infection of unknown source. “With older folks, age-related changes in their immune system and co-morbidities make them more vulnerable.”
One of the biggest challenges continues to be distinguishing between viral and bacterial infections, Tamblyn said. That’s why the European Union has created a €1 million prize to be awarded to the person or team that develops a rapid test to tell whether a patient needs to be treated with antibiotics.
“Imagine that something like this will be created, made available through pharmacies, and people could check themselves, just like we all do now for pregnancy,” Tamblyn said.