Comparing alcohol purchases of Finnish consumers before and after alcohol legislation reform in 2024

Background

The maximum permitted alcohol content of beer and wine sold in Finnish grocery stores was raised from 5.5% to 8% in June 2024. We examined how this increase affected alcohol purchases in general and across socio-demographic subgroups.

Methods

We used purchase data from the largest grocery retail chain in Finland. The data consisted of alcohol purchases of 36,355 participants and their responses to an electronic background questionnaire. We calculated the volume of 100% alcohol (l) in total and stratified by beverage type (beer, wine, cider, ready-to-drink beverages) and compared alcohol purchases in 2023 and 2024 to assess the impact of the legal reform. Linear mixed models were used to assess whether the impact differed between population subgroups.

Results

The mean annual alcohol purchases increased by 0.07 l (4.5%, SD 2.07, 95% CI 0.05; 0.10) in 2024. This was mainly driven by increase in wine purchases (mean 0.05, SD 0.32, 95% CI 0.05; 0.06), but also beer purchases increased (mean 0.02, SD 1.83, 95% CI 0.00; 0.04). The legal reform had differing impacts in population subgroups. Wine purchases increased more in older than younger age groups (0.07 l vs. 0.02 l, p < 0.01) and among participants from rural than urban areas (0.07 l vs. 0.05 l, p < 0.01). Compared to single households, two-adult households with children increased their wine purchases less (0.04 l vs. 0.06 l, p < 0.01). Participants with high education increased their alcohol (0.05 l vs. 0.16 l, p = 0.02) and beer purchases (0.01 l vs. 0.13 l, p = 0.01) less than those with lower education. We found no differences according to gender or income.

Conclusions

Alcohol purchases increased following a legal reform, but the impact was modest, corresponding to approximately one bottle of 8%-wine a year. The observed differences between socio-demographic groups suggest that the impacts of alcohol policies should be studied not only at the population level but also in population subgroups.

Key messages

• Impact assessment should focus particularly on less educated and older aged groups, as they may be more sensitive to increased availability of alcohol.

• Traditional monitoring methods can be supplemented with loyalty card-based purchase data to better understand how legal reforms affect population subgroups.