The industry is ablaze with the talk of non-alcoholic beverages rise in the marketplace. According to IWSR, overall volume year-to-year grew 29%.

With growth in this category transitioning from sleepy to emerging, there will no doubt be more scrutiny.

Recently, we have seen enhanced scrutiny on non-alcoholic brands that transitioned into the alcohol space. Brands like Eggo Waffle, Sunny Delight, and Hard Mountain Dew have become subject to regulatory change, which subjects them to new requirements. For example, some states passed laws that requires these items be specifically placed in the liquor department and not be part of general merchandise. The position was that brand confusion would inadvertently cause children to consume alcohol when they thought they were getting a Mountain Dew.

But what about things that go the other way? With non-alc beverages growing so rapidly, it is inevitable that the Trulys and White Claws of the world will create a non-alc brand.

With the WHO and the neo-prohibitionist being on the rampage, what does future scrutiny look like for these brands?

I remember back in the day candy cigarettes. At 6 or 7 years old my friends and I would get on our big wheels with a candy cigarette dangling from our mouth and drive around. We wanted to be like James Dean or some other cool Hollywood icon.

Years later the world looks at candy cigarettes differently. Some countries in Western Europe and the State of Minnesota bans them. In most states they are hard to find.

So what future do our non-alc brands face? Will the regulator say that a non-alc Truly gets kids hooked on the positive image of alcohol, similar to what candy cigarettes were doing back in the day, or does their non-alcoholic content provide them leeway from regulation?

With some health advocates being so gung-ho against alcohol, don’t be surprised if non-alc versions of popular alcohol brands begin to face regulatory scrutiny. What does this scrutiny look like, we don’t know. Will these products need to be segregated to a special place to keep them away from kids, and will there be moves to stop these products from the marketplace?

Although non-alc is a growing category, there are some great unknows. The WHO seems to hate anything that relates to alcohol. Could they take the position that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but does not walk like a duck, it is still a duck?

I hope for the industry’s sake we find out these answers soon, but in my mind regulating non-alc and treating them like alcohol would be a marketplace disaster.

Finally, we also must address the distribution of these products. Some wholesalers enjoy franchise rights over alcohol brands, many of these distributors are attempting to extend franchise rights of the non-alc portfolio. A legislature who allows this would erroneously expand alcohol rules to govern a non-alcohol industry. This would violate sound regulatory policy and would blatantly reward a large business interest for no good apparent reason.