It seems like a joke: yogurt with liqueur. Did the Instagram account ‘What I miss in the supermarket’ come up with this? No, producer Zuivelhoeve has really put the so-called ‘Boer’n Yoghurt Licor43’ on the shelves. But can a dessert with alcohol be on the normal shelf? And can it get you drunk?
The packaging of the Boer’n Yoghurt Licor43 does state in small letters that it contains alcohol, but not exactly how much. So we contact a spokesperson for Zuivelhoeve to ask two questions: what alcohol percentage does the yogurt have? And what rules apply to that?
How much alcohol is in Boer’n Yogurt Licor43?
Zuivelhoeve says that the dessert contains 0.04 percent alcohol in total, so the yogurt and the liqueur part are added together. The fact that the percentage is not stated is because it is not required by law. The spokesperson writes: ‘It is mandatory to state the effective percentage of alcohol on the label from 1.2 percent alcohol in the end product. In the Boer’n Yoghurt Licor 43, the effective alcohol content is < 1 percent. That is why the 0.04 percent is not declared on the packaging.'
Can it get you drunk?
What about the effect of such a small amount of alcohol? Can you be the Bob when you eat this dessert? The answer is yes. You can practically not get tipsy from 0.04 percent alcohol. This is apparent from an experiment in which test subjects drank at least six glasses of beer with 0.1 percent alcohol: little or no alcohol was measured in their blood.
Can you give it to your child?
Can you give this yogurt to a child? Rather not, says Zuivelhoeve: ‘Despite the fact that the alcohol percentage is very low, we would not advise giving this to children under 18 years of age.’ But your child can buy the dessert himself. The NVWA says that children under 18 may buy products with alcohol if the percentage is below 0.5 percent.