Health labelling on alcohol

We’re calling for mandatory health warnings to be printed on all alcohol labels.

Since 2023, CancerWatch has been campaigning for mandatory health warnings on the labels of all alcoholic drinks. We believe the UK should follow the precedent set by Ireland which legislated for mandatory health warnings on alcohol labels, a measure now due to come into force in 2028.

In 2025, in the 10-Year Health Plan for England, the Westminster government committed to introducing mandatory health warning messages on alcohol labels, a promise repeated in the 2026 National Cancer Plan. A consultation on this is now expected in late 2026.

Background: alcohol and cancer

The World Health Organisation classifies alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen. And alcohol is a known risk factor in seven different cancers, including breast, bowel and oesophageal cancer. As many as 1 in 10 breast cancer cases are caused by drinking alcohol, equating to about 4,400 cases per year.¹In total, alcohol is estimated to cause 17,000 cases per year in the UK, around 4% of all cancers.²

Furthermore, there is no safe limit below which this risk doesn’t exist. At whatever level you drink, decreasing your drinking will decrease your cancer risk.³

Alcohol labelling: current situation

Currently the law in the UK only requires labels on alcoholic drinks to include: i) the volume of the container; ii) the drink’s strength (ABV); and iii) whether any of the 14 most common allergens are present.

The inclusion of further information is currently left entirely up to the producer and industry-led bodies. The best practice ‘Alcohol Labelling Guidelines’ are produced by the alcohol industry-run Portman Group. They describe themselves as the “social responsibility body and regulator for alcohol labelling, packaging and promotion in the UK”.

These industry-produced guidelines state that the following should be included on alcohol labels as best practice:

Unit alcohol content per container (and optional per typical serve)
A message or symbol warning against drinking during pregnancy
Signposting to the Drinkaware website
The Chief Medical Officers’ Low Risk Drinking Guidelines

Alcohol labelling: the case for health warnings

For people to make informed choices about how much they drink, they need to have the facts about the impact alcohol can have on their health, including cancer risk.

Government can and should support people to understand those risks and to make healthier choices. The current voluntary, industry-led labelling regime for alcohol will not achieve this.

There is a strong case for mandatory health warnings on alcohol because:

Awareness of the links between alcohol and cancer remains relatively low. While most people know that smoking causes cancer, only around half are aware that alcohol is also a risk factor.⁴
There is good evidence that health warning labels on alcohol can increase awareness of health risks and help moderate consumption. The WHO concluded that warning labels can influence intentions to reduce alcohol consumption⁵, and studies have found that cancer warning labels increase awareness of the alcohol–cancer link and can reduce self-reported drinking.⁶
There are currently no mandatory labelling requirements for alcohol, unlike equivalent regimes for food and tobacco. On food packaging, nutritional information is mandatory, on alcohol products there are no equivalent requirements. Tobacco products must display prominent warnings on the risks to health, on alcohol products there are no equivalent requirements. Instead, alcohol labelling in the UK continues to be based on voluntary, industry-led guidance.

Public opinion also appears supportive of more comprehensive alcohol labelling, with polling indicating that a majority of UK adults favour providing consumers with more health information on alcohol products.⁷

Mandatory labelling in Ireland

In May 2023, Ireland became the first country in the world to introduce comprehensive health labelling of alcoholic drinks, under the Public Health (Alcohol) (Labelling) Regulations 2023.

This will require labels of alcoholic drinks to:

state the calorie content and grams of alcohol in the product
warn about the risk of consuming alcohol when pregnant, and
warn of the risk of liver disease and fatal cancers from alcohol consumption.

The Irish government described the new regulations as ‘bringing alcohol into line with labelling requirements for other products.’ A long lead-in time was put in place to give businesses time to adjust, with the law set to come into effect from May 2026.

However, implementation has since been postponed until September 2028, with the government citing concerns over the impact on Ireland’s economic interests in an uncertain global trade environment, and the need for a further adjustment period. The Irish government has shown no sign of reversing or watering down this policy, but public health campaigners remain vigilant about the dangers of ongoing industry pushback and further delays.

What we are calling for

We are calling on the government to:

1. Introduce mandatory health warnings on all alcohol products to improve consumer awareness of the health implications of drinking alcohol.

2. Include in mandatory health labelling a specific warning about the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. This would reflect the recommendations of the WHO Europe⁸, and would also mirror the legislation being implemented in Ireland.Labelling in the UK should aspire to at least match these standards.

3. Transfer regulation around new mandatory standards for alcohol labelling to an independent regulatory body,such as the Food Standards Agency, to ensure that the regulation of alcohol labelling is at least as rigorous as it is for foodstuffs.