A trade association is calling on the government to ban supermarket alcohol advertising in newspapers.
The Federation of Licensed Victuallers' Associations (FLVA) has written a letter to health minister Rose Winterton to ask for action against the advertising of cheap alcohol.
It believes the supermarkets are continuing to try and undercut each other's pricing and use the national press as a medium to exploit this.
Chief executive of the FLVA Tony Payne said: "We know we can¹t ask for minimum pricing but we can ask for the advertising of alcohol in the press to be banned."
He also wants supermarkets to have a separate area for alcohol where customers actually pay separately rather than having alcohol dotted round the stores.
"We think alcohol should be kept within a separate shop area in the supermarket," he added.
However, Payne is concerned that the letter has been passed between government departments and in particular on to the Home Office which he said simply wrote back giving details of the industry¹s code of practice on promotions which supermarkets are not signed up to.
"They haven't responded positively to our concerns. We are going to take it back up with the Department of Health," he added.
The letter comes in the week that the head of the Royal College of Physicians, Professor Ian Gilmore, claimed that the UK is not strict enough on alcohol advertising compared to other European nations. He said that alcohol in the UK had "never been cheaper than it is now", and expressed concern about people who drink over the safe limits.
The campaign against supermarkets is continuing to win support from MPs with 176 now signed up to the parliamentary motion on the issue. MP John Grogan tabled the Early Day Motion calling on supermarkets to stop using alcohol as a loss leader drafted by The Publican on December 13.
The Publican's Dump the Deals campaign has called for the four major supermarkets Sainsbury¹s, Morrisons, Tesco and Asda to explain their alcohol policy. Three of them have responded although there is still no response from Tesco.