Sugar-free soju betrays calorie-conscious consumers

Sugar-free soju bottles are displayed at the Korea Consumer Agency's office in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Tuesday. [NEWS1]

Sugar-free soju, it turns out, has no dramatic difference in sugar content — and even calories — compared to regular soju.

It is true that the five hottest sugarless soju brands in Korea — Chum-Churum Saero, often just called Saero, Daesun Distilling, Good Day Soju, Jinro, and ZERO2 — have no sugar in them, according to a report by the Korea Consumer Agency on Tuesday.

Ironically, however, regular soju like Chamisul soju and Chum-Churum soju have just 0.12 grams of sugar per 100 milliliters of soju on average — low enough to be classified as "sugar-free" according to the country's drug and food ministry standards.

Calories were barely different as well, with sugar-free soju only 2.8 to 14 percent lower than regular soju.

"The results contradict consumers' expectations, as nearly 70 percent of them initially thought sugar-free soju contains considerably fewer calories than regular soju," the consumer agency said in a statement, citing a survey of 2,000 people who have consumed sugar-free soju.

The discrepancy in sugar content is drastically different from regular beverages, for which sugar-free versions have far fewer calories than the regular ones. Sugarless beverages turned out to have 98 percent fewer calories than regular drinks, according to the agency's survey of 20 products.

The consumer protection agency also criticized the traditional way of marketing "non-alcoholic beer" for possibly confusing consumers into believing that they have zero alcohol content. Currently, brewing companies designate beer with alcohol content under 1 percent as "0.0" while alcohol-free beer is labeled "0.00."

A test of Tsingtao 0.0, Cass 0.0, Kloud Clear Zero, Heineken 0.0 and Hite Zero by the agency found that, in fact, Cass 0.0, for example, has 0.02 percent ethanol content.

Eight out of 10 consumers said they did not know the details about the "0.0" and "0.00" designations on beer products. Half of the interviewees said they thought "non-alcoholic beer" has no alcohol in it at all.

"The existing system confuses consumers to think that beer marked as 'non-alcoholic' has zero alcohol in it," the agency said. "We recommend that producers improve the indication and we will launch further negotiations."

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]