Sainsbury's snubs £100m anti-binge campaign

Supermarket giant Sainsbury's is not involved in a new £100m industry-wide responsible drinking campaign because the initiative "duplicates rather than furthers" its current work on the issue, the company said.

Its "big four" rivals Tesco, Asda and Morrisons have all signed up to the Campaign for Smarter Drinking launched yesterday, but Sainsbury's have decided it does not want to participate.

The campaign, which kicks off in September, is the largest ever media spend on responsible drinking messages and will see posters appearing on billboards, in pubs and at point-of-sale in shops.

The main message will be: "Why let good times go bad?"

Major pubcos including Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns have also signed up to the campaign, along with significantly smaller operators such as Wadworth, Thwaites and St Austell.

The British Beer & Pub Association and Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers are also signed up but will not contribute money to the initiative.

A spokesman for Sainsbury's said: "Whilst we wholeheartedly support the principles behind this new Drinkaware campaign we feel it duplicates rather than furthers our existing work in encouraging responsible drinking, and as such we declined to participate in this specific event."

He added: "We take our responsibilities as a licensed retailer very seriously and we have supported the Drinkaware Trust and its objectives since its inception.

"We took a leading role in the creation of the award-winning Community Alcohol Partnership initiative in St Neots to reduce alcohol-related disorder, and have introduced a Think-25 policy at all our stores to help prevent alcohol being sold to underage drinkers.

"We also chair the Retail of Alcohol Standards Group.

"In February 2007 we were the first supermarket to adopt the government's guidelines on the labelling of alcohol."