Teas, cosmetics, puzzles… For several years, Advent calendars have become widely diversified, even if it means supplanting the traditional daily chocolate in certain homes. And at the same time as the products multiplied and the budget increased, the audience changed. No more small boxes to keep children waiting until December 24, the Advent calendar is now a pleasure for adults to face the start of winter, or even an early gift.
The market logically ended up attracting brewers, then other alcohol producers, by offering to discover a bottle per day for a price varying from sixty to several hundred euros. And it works ! A little too much even, warn several doctors. “It encourages people to consume not only regularly, but even daily,” laments Professor Amine Benyamina, president of the French Federation of Addictology (FFA), from BFMTV.
“It’s important to have alcohol-free days”
By comparing their alcohol to a “playful object” and a “childish universe”, producers trivialize consumption, denounces Franck Lecas, of the Addictions France association, interviewed by 60 million consumers. A marketing coup and an “additional way of anchoring its consumption in our daily lives”, but a “disastrous practice in terms of public health”, for Mickaël Naassila, president of the French Society of Alcoholology. Discovering a bottle per day for 24 consecutive days goes completely against the recommendations of the health authorities, both on the quantity of alcohol and on regularity.
“In addiction, we fight the development of habits and we emphasize how important it is to have days without alcohol,” insists Mickaël Naassila. But Clara Wyler, founder of the Duchemann brewery, defends her product to BFMTV and wants to sweep away the “drinking side”, inviting consumers to keep the uncovered bottles for “the next aperitif with friends”.