In AG Settlement, MillerCoors Drops Caffeinated Alcohol Beverages
MillerCoors agreed last week to reformulate it Sparks alcoholic energy drink in a settlement with 14 attorneys general who claimed the beverages were “dangerous.”
The deal follows a similar multi-state effort that ended last June with Anheuser-Busch agreeing to reformulate its alcoholic energy drinks, including Tilt and Bud Extra by removing caffeine and other ingredients.
With the agreements, about 85% of alcoholic energy drinks have now been eliminated from the marketplace, however the states are continuing to pursue other companies that market similar drinks, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.
“Drinks like Sparks encourage the polar opposite of responsible drinking habits,” Cuomo said. “Besides being aggressively marketed to a younger crowd, they are fundamentally dangerous and put drinkers of all ages at risk.”
MillerCoors said it had not marketed Sparks to underage youth and disagreed with such allegations. It agreed to pay $550,000 to the states to pay for the cost of the investigation.
“As a responsible company, we are always willing to listen to societal partners and consider changes to our business to reinforce our commitment to alcohol responsibility, Tom Long, president and chief commercial officer at MillerCoors, said in a statement.
The firm will continue to market and sell Sparks, but will remove caffeine, taurine, guarana and ginseng from the product effective Jan. 10. The AG investigation focused on Sparks brand products, which include Sparks Original, Sparks Light, Sparks Plus and an unreleased higher alcohol product called Sparks Red.
MillerCoors also agreed not to produce any caffeinated alcohol beverages in the future and to change its advertising. The changes include eliminating images that imply energy or power, eliminating marketing themes that appear to underage youth and discontinuing advertisements that show a bright orange-stained tongue. The deal also calls for MillerCoors to not renew its contract with William Ocean, an air guitar champion who does a back flip onto an opened can of Sparks at all of his shows. The Web sites for Sparks are being overhauled, the AGs office said.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C. advocacy group, had also been pressuring both Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors to stop marketing alcoholic energy drinks.
A recently published Wake Forest University study found that college students who mix alcohol and energy drinks were more likely to be hurt, sexually assaulted or drive drunk than those who only drank alcohol, the AGs office said.
