Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The Truth About the Portman Group


The global economy is, to put it mildly, in a fix. For a new package launch this was perhaps not the year to be changing the packaging and introducing ShotPak® into new markets?

Look around you, credit has tightened, stock markets are in freefall and through all of this despair we are proud to announce that North American ShotPak® consumers continue to buy our products. A signal of their strong support allowed us to grow month to month for the past three quarters. Our eight products launched in our new patented Standup pouch in the first quarter of 2008 was be a momentous occasion for us and fully supported by our million plus consumers.

Despite the gloom we are still introducing new ideas. Our Holiday 12 pouch variety packs is a great gift box for the season and is being well received by the trades.

However, just as sudden as the financial crisis appeared, we were thrust into the limelight based on the so called "attractiveness" of our product to people under 18 in the United Kingdom, accusing us of encouraging binge drinking to young people.

Even though we do not market to young people in the UK, we were "tarred and feathered," tried and found guilty without a chance to defend ourselves in the UK market by the officious Portman Group.

Who is the Portman Group you might ask? They are an organization of liquor industry members who act as a watchdog group. There they oversee a code of practice on the naming, packaging and promoting of alcohol in the UK. By the way, we fully support the principle of no underage drinking or out of control binge drinking sessions, but the judgment on these acts must be honest and unbiased. Read on for the truth as to what happened to ShotPak®.

As an introduction, let me explain one of the Portman Group's latest rulings. They condemned and banned a Scottish beer called "Skullsplitter" on the grounds it would encourage violence.

(My Scottish ancestry and character did not take this childlike decision so well!)

The fact that this beer is over 20 years old (ShotPak® is five years old) and is not available in UK supermarkets (ShotPak® is also not available in UK supermarkets) was totally ignored by this group of apparently out of touch committee. These are people, who probably never have had to work and balance a budget in their entire life. The harm they cause to other companies in the interest of always being right is actually shocking. The lack of commercial understanding makes me wonder about fiduciary duty and harm to a brand they ban with little or no evidence of any wrong doing. The damage to our group could exceed a million pounds by the time we are finished with our lawsuit.

The so called Portman Group justice for the "Skullsplitter" brewery was, "off with their head" (sorry a pun) a total ban, as well as the end of an era. Do the Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland come to mind? (My apologies to Lewis Carroll).

I am personally enraged by the Portman Group's report about ShotPak®, because they have allowed a UK product called "Sidekick" the ultimate shot to remain on the market. The "Sidekick" Ultimate shots have all the negative attributes the Portman Group complained about, compared to our eco-friendly pouch with a lower alcohol product content. We were banned and they were allowed to remain. Consider that in London, at several sports pubs every weekend, alcohol is served in pouches. There is no doubt we were selected as a competitive US product and for sure as a threat to a member of the Portman Group supporters (actually our competitors).

The Portman Group first raised its concerns about ShotPak®, following a single complaint from Sally Keebles. She is a controversial British Labor MP, who advocates a variety of issues including banning fox hunting dogs and smoking and so on. She is desperately trying to find something to hold on to her seat after a unproductive term in office, where she has done nothing, but try to stop her constituents from enjoying themselves (these views are not mine but according to reports on various internet blogs). She suddenly found that the liberal party opposition published a manifesto about underage and binge drinking, which actually makes sense in that if you break the liquor laws you must be punished. Ms. Keebles, with no liquor policy in place, immediately countered by saying that ShotPak® encourages binge drinking in young people, in fact we have less than half the alcohol of the miniature liquor bottles including less than "SideKick" shots readily available in stores.

To show her bias even more, she claimed that children will mistake the pouch for fruit drinks. So we wonder where or what her actual thought process was, only to think what she saw was perhaps another US idea that our very upper class MP (from a blog) decided was unacceptable for adults. No questions were asked. A complaint was made and we were banned.

Back to the Portman Group, we explained all of our benefits to them, including the reduced alcohol cocktail formulas and our efforts to diminish the effects of binge drinking, but with regret to no avail. Really, ShotPaq® is a positive solution to the so called binge drinking problem, which is mentioned in their report, because after four drinks you are still well below the legal limit for a normal sized person.

We cooperated with them all the way. However as they are so full of, well you know what, and their hidden agenda which is probably the need to correct the labor government perceived mistake of 24 hour licensing, they looked for non UK products to be the scapegoats for the binge drinking problem. Why not take on and ban the 40% alcohol miniature bottle that can compared to our 17% alcohol pouch product? This is simple math, but taking responsibility for screw-ups is not their strong point.

Remember we do not target the young market, we sell the lowest alcohol product at the highest prices on the street (£15 a six pack in the UK) and to adult clubs and yet we were banned.

We presented the new labeling on our pouches incorporating the UK Government alcohol consumption guidelines as requested, without any approval or comment on our efforts from the Portman Group.

We pointed out that we offer the eco-friendly, lowest carbon dioxide footprint package on the market, but to no avail. What are they going to do when major groups change over to the pouch? Will they invite Shotpak® back? They are just out of touch with any modern market developments.

Under the Beverage Pouch Group marketing policy, we have always promoted a responsible attitude towards underage or binge drinking and we are not the problem in this regard. In fact, our cocktail sales in the UK is a small percentage of the national consumption of cocktails.

My biggest concern with the officious, out of touch, self important Portman Group is that they did not bother to check if ShotPak® has been named by any Police Chief as having a direct link to binge drinking or appeared in any court or hospital complaint as a result of heavy drinking of ShotPak® cocktails.

Remember ShotPak® pouches are not sold in Sally Keebles' area. Do you see the bias coming through?

Another concern is that the Portman Group is ignoring CE trade and US trade relations with the UK?

We continue to wonder why they do not look at more high profile drinks with higher alcoholic contents than ShotPak®. These high profile products are sold in miniature bottles and freely available in supermarkets and traditionally used for binge drinking. If we are banned, then all similar products should be banned. Is this an attempt to protect home packaged UK drinks to the detriment of the UK drinker being exposed to so-called lower alcohol Yankee cocktails? In addition, they are less likely to be harmed if they drink a few Shotpaks®

I personally believe that this is the case with the Shotpak® ban.


Please look at the above pictures of the "Sidekick" shots packed in glass and allowed to remain for sale in the UK and then think about Shotpak® pouches being banned. No glass and no weapon with our pouch. Comments about Shotpak® brand names being attractive to the young people market is really stretching the imagination.

The Portman Group has used its considerable influence to recommend the banning of ShotPak® brands based on the names of the products and the package style based on just this single complaint.

Of course when we look at the "Skullsplitter" beer ban and "Sidekick" shot approved stories above, we find that large breweries and our British cocktail or STR8UP® spirits competitors are totally ignored by the Portman Group, who know that if they clash with them that will be the end of their mission and possibly the Portman Group. Imagine a single complaint about one of the products of a major organization could lead to a ban of the product. All hell would break loose.

For example and to illustrate my point about the level playing field I do believe that in Westminster that the pubs still allow smoking, but no where else in the UK and so it is one law for the haves (Sally Keebles and the Portman Group) and another for the working class.

Sooner or later the credibility of the Portman Group will end as people realize they let their own members break their code of practice without any comment or bans. I can think of several beers well above the alcohol content of "Skullsplitter" and still trading alongside the miniature bottles or shot glasses of "Sidekick" with little Portman Group concern.

My suggestion to the Portman Group is get your act together, stop being so righteous when you are wrong, so keen to bend over for a British MP, because of the "old boys club", stiff upper lip British approach, because if you truly looked and vetted ShotPak(r) you would find we are not a product that encourages binge drinking. If "Sidekick" and PET miniature bottles are allowed in the market then we should also be allowed to participate.

We intend to fight this terribly biased commercial attack by asking the one million plus Shotpak(r) consumers and their friends, via our internet chat rooms to stop buying British gin.

It might be a small revolution and take time, but we hope it will show our contempt for the Portman Group's completely biased and tilted playing field approach to our new modern American cocktail products in pouches.

Think about it, no more British gin and tonic! We have some great US gins which we will advertise for free on our website.

In closing, a tough blog, but we have families working at ShotPak® and at our customers outlets who do not deserve to be blamed for the UK problem of binge drinking, particularly as we actually have a better solution to help curb this practice.

Remember tell a friend; tell your local club, your local bar, bottle store, golf club, we want fair play. Pass on the message "No more British gin until ShotPak® is allowed back in".

Help the boycott, one gin substitute at a time, until we get a fair deal from the Portman Group.

Send this message by e-blasts to all concerned.