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By David Lindsay
Red Bull importer Logic International is ready for business once again, despite last week’s setback that saw some 140,000 bottles and 2,000 cans of the popular energy drink being confiscated by MEPA and the police.
Speaking to MaltaToday this week, Logic Managing Director John Abela explained that the company is on the verge of introducing a comprehensive system for returns and is awaiting the go ahead from the authorities to introduce the scheme.
Once in place, the scheme will see all Red Bull bottles sold in Malta carrying a 10 cent deposit, refundable upon return. Bottles will then be shipped back to Red Bull Austria, refilled and redistributed.
In fact, Maltese Red Bull labels have advertised the 10 cent deposit/refund for the last two years – an initiative adopted a year ago when today’s state of affairs was first foreseen.
Last week’s action saw Red Bull bottles and cans, all both banned under the Non-alcoholic Beverages (Control of Containers) Regulations, which prohibit soft drinks from being imported, traded or consumed in non-refillable packages, such as cans or glass bottles which are not part of a deposit-and-return scheme.
A judicial protest consequently filed by Logic had stated that the confiscations were “disproportionate, illegal, abusive and causing substantial damage” to Logic International.
In Malta, energy drinks are still grouped under the general umbrella of the soft drink, namely a ‘non-alcoholic beverage with less than two per cent of alcohol’, placing Malta’s regulations at loggerheads with European legislation, which differentiates between energy drinks and soft drinks.
MEPA, however, defended its actions by saying that Red Bull is covered by the Non-alcoholic Beverages (Control of Containers) Regulations, which prohibit soft drinks from being imported, sold or consumed unless they are not packed in a refillable glass container or dispensed from a keg.
The legal notice (number 158) was drafted back in 1998 under the Environment Protection Act. Apart from keeping an estimated 80 million plastic bottles outside the Maltese waste cycle, the regulations were aimed at protecting the soft drinks giants, namely Farsons and General Soft Drinks, ahead of EU accession, which would have prompted the sprouting of parallel traders. Malta managed to negotiate with the EU for the ban to remain in place until 2007.
The events which prompted the lightning strike on seven different localities came just a day after a new association, the Malta Association of Soft Drinks Producers (MASDP), was set up under the auspices of the Federation of Industry.
The association, whose chairman and deputy chairman is Farsons director Louis Farrugia and General Soft Drinks general manager Maria Micallef – authorised bottlers for Pepsico and Coca-Cola respectively – held its first AGM days before the police swoop, in which it called for action to be taken on the trading of illegal, canned soft drinks.
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