Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ALCOHOL

Arla exec to take over as head of Systembolaget

Sweden’s state-run liquor monopoly Systembolaget has named a successor to Anitra Steen, who is set to retire from her position as managing director on April 30th.

Published: 23 January 2009 14:40 CET
Arla exec to take over as head of Systembolaget

In finding a successor for Steen, the wife of former Prime Minister Göran Persson, Systembolaget plucked 44-year-old Magdalena Gerger, a senior vice president, from Scandinavian dairy giant Arla Foods.

“We all have a relationship to Systembolaget, which gives a face to Swedish alcohol policy,” said Gerger in a statement.

“It feels really exciting to be a part of the company’s continued development.”

In assuming the reigns from Steen, who ran Systembolaget for the past decade, Gerger stressed the importance of the company’s social duty.

“Systembolaget is a well-run company with an important mission to both be socially responsible and provide good service,” she said.

Prior to her work at Arla, Gerger held positions at Nestle and Procter & Gamble. She also serves on the board of directors of Ikea and is a former director with Swedish gaming monopoly Svenska Spel.

ALCOHOL

Spain has second highest rate of daily alcohol drinkers in EU 

More than one in ten Spaniards drink alcohol every day, making them the Europeans who drink most regularly after the Portuguese, new Eurostat data reveals. 

Published: 10 August 2021 14:15 CEST
Spain has second highest rate of daily alcohol drinkers in EU 
Photo: Cristina Quicler/AFP

Thirteen percent of people in Spain drink alcohol every day, a similar rate to Italy, where 12 percent enjoy a tipple on a daily basis, and only behind Portugal, where 20 percent of people have an alcoholic drink seven days a week.

That puts Spaniards above the EU average of 8.4 percent daily drinkers, data published by Eurostat in July 2021 reveals. 

This consistent alcoholic intake among Spaniards is far higher than in countries such as Sweden (1.8 percent daily drinkers), Poland (1.6 percent), Norway (1.4 percent), Estonia (1.3 percent) and Latvia (1.2 percent). 

However, the survey that looked at the frequency of alcohol consumption in people aged 15 and over shows that weekly and monthly drinking habits among Spaniards are more in line with European averages. 

A total of 22.9 percent of respondents from Spain said they drunk booze on a weekly basis, 18.3 percent every month, 12.5 percent less than once a month, and 33 percent haven’t had a drink ever or in the last year. 

Furthermore, another part of the study which looked at heavy episodic drinking found that Spaniards are the third least likely to get blind drunk, after Cypriots and Italians.

The Europeans who ingested more than 60 grammes of pure ethanol on a single occasion at least once a month in 2019 were Danes (37.8 percent), Romanians (35 percent), Luxembourgers (34.3 percent) and Germans (30.4 percent). 

The UK did not form part of the study but Ireland is included. 

Overall, Eurostat’s findings reflect how the Spanish habit of enjoying a glass of wine with a meal or a small beer (caña) outdoors with friends continues to be common daily practice, even though 13 percent does not make it prevalent. 

Spaniards’ tendency to drink in moderation also continues to prevail, even though a 2016 study by Danish pharmaceuticals company Lundbeck found that one in six people in the country still drinks too much. 

READ ALSO:

SHOW COMMENTS