The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has said it will no longer order beer from breweries which don’t list all ingredients.
Following new EU rules introduced less than a year ago which affected allergen food labelling, CAMRA, which organises around 200 real ale festivals across the UK every year, has introduced the new measures to ensure its beer festivals are more attractive to the one in five people who have food intolerances.
CAMRA chief executive, Tim Page, said: “Every CAMRA festival now has full allergen information available to customers for every single real ale on sale, which ensures that somebody with an intolerance to something like gluten or wheat can be sure the beer they are choosing is suitable for them to drink.”
CAMRA will now only purchase beer from breweries that supply full information on the ingredients going into their beer, encouraging them to tap into an industry that is in huge growth. The ‘free-from’ market has grown 72% in the last five years and the number of gluten-free restaurant items has increased by 300% since 2011, but the beer industry has been slow to adapt, with just a handful of gluten free beers available.
Tim said: “We want to ensure festival-goers are 100% confident in the information they are given and the only way to do that is to ensure we have the correct information at every step of the supply chain, from the brewers, to festival organisers, right through to the staff working behind our bars.
“I myself have a wheat intolerance and find it extremely difficult to get accurate information on whether a beer contains wheat or not, as it is often used in small amounts. Now, at CAMRA’s festivals, I can now be secure in my choices.”
