Asda claims minimum alcohol price law has cost it over £1m

In a statement submitted to the Welsh Assembly’s health committee, UK supermarket Asda has said that preparing for the new minimum alcohol price law in Scotland cost it over £1 million.

Asda submitted written evidence to the Welsh Assembly’s health committee on 11 January, warning of “significant costs for businesses in Wales…associated with the implementation of complex new systems to handle minimum pricing”.

To give an idea of the scale of these costs, it cited the example of Scotland, which is set to become the first country in the world to implement the measure following a ruling by the Supreme Court in November last year. An expected MUP of 50p will take effect in Scotland in May 2018, while in Wales, which has not yet set its minimum price per unit, measures are due to be enforced in summer 2019.

Asda’s statement continued:  “As an indication of the scale of these costs, preparing our pricing systems for the implementation of minimum pricing in Scotland cost Asda more than £1m and took approximately three years”.

When questioned by Assembly Members about the veracity of Asda’s claims, Wales’ health secretary, Vaughan Gething, said: “I would suggest that we should take with a pinch of salt a large retailer like Asda, or others, who are suggesting there will be an enormous cost to changing the price of a range of products.

“Asda themselves change prices on a regular basis – it’s not difficult for them to do that in individual stores or across the country.

“Every time there is a budget and whoever is the government of the day changes taxation on products, by the next day they’re able to manage that and to deal with it.

“And they don’t ever say ‘don’t you dare change alcohol taxes on this particular day’ and require us to do it within a period of time, [saying] ‘it’ll cost us far too much money’”.