Complaints about drinks products soar

The number of complaints recorded by industry watchdog the Portman Group has surged to its highest annual level in the past decade.

According to the group's annual report, 21 complaints were made in 2008 of which eight were upheld by the Independent Complaints Commission.

Nearly half of these complaints followed the analysis of 485 drinks by PIPC, an independent management consultancy.

After a number of products were identified as being in possible breach of the watchdog's code of practice on the naming, packaging and promotion of alcoholic drinks, 18 companies voluntarily altered their products.

The 10 remaining products were referred to the Independent Complaints Panel and two were found to be in breach of the code.

The number of companies turning to the Portman Group for confidential pre-market advice has also risen, with 250 occasions of advice recorded in the past year.

David Poley, Portman Group chief executive, said: "There was a rich variety of code complaints over the year. Almost half resulted from the PIPC audit of drinks packaging compliance with our code. This audit may have been unpopular with a few companies but robust, independent auditing is important.

"It is one of the reasons why the Government stopped short of extending the mandatory retail code to drinks producers. We have to verify that companies are doing the right thing rather than assuming that they are."

Since the code and the Independent Complaints Panel were introduced in 1996, more than 70 drinks have been found to be in breach of the code.