Heineken Launches 15-Count Multi-Pack

The packaging is misleading and appears to be all non-alcoholic beer with 3 extra for free. Not a good surprise for anyone with alcohol issues.

I’m a senior citizen who is confused by the packaging. The person running the checkout at the Stop& Shop was also confused; he told me that the entire 15 pack was non-alcoholic. So I put it back and bought a 12-pack of another beer.

My boyfriend made the mistake of buying your 15 pack and boy it cost him a lot. He had drank one of the non alcoholic beers and then the next night While cooking the family dinner unwinding after work he accidentally drank 1 or 2 of your beers which contain alcohol. He unfortunately is on probation for a prior drinking violation and had been sober 17 months; part of his probation is to breath into a breathalyzer apparatus 4 times daily. Well this time within a half hour of blowing in to it four police officers were here to cuff him and put him back in jail where he still sits, might I add during a pandemic. He most likely will lose his job and will be held on trial later this month. Looks like your company may be looking at a law suit once we get his life back on track. Who’s stupid idea was this?

Taking this back to the store, thought I was getting Heineken 0 …ended up with a product that i did not want….packaging is terrible for someone with diabetes or an alcoholic that does not need this temptation….you need to fire your marketing team, were they last employed by the original Coke geniuses

My husband had a brain annurisym 1 year ago and was told absolutely no alcohol because it would increase his chances of another incident. After 3 beers my husband and I realized this wasn’t all non alcoholic which put my husband into a severe panic attack which lead to a doctor visit. YOU MUST CHANGE THIS MISLEADING PACKAGING. Your going to have a law suit.

Am on the same page I feel so bad cuz I been sober for more than 6 months and believe me I bout it thinking that they were none alcohol in 😔
And I feel so bad cuz just thought that I was drinking a none alcohol beer but start feeling weird 😔

I sent this to Heineken
7.8.2020
To whom it may concern

I am writing to inform you of a very dangerous advertising policy your company is currently running concerning your Heineken Zero product.
The back story:
For all of my adult life I have consumed alcohol. Now say what you will about alcohol, but it can, and very often does, have a negative impact on you if not consumed responsibly. For me I could not control my intake.
On 4/26/19 I made the decision to attempt to eliminate alcohol in my life as it became unmanageable. To toot my own horn, I have succeeded in my effort thanks in some part to Non-Alcoholic beer that helps me enjoy the taste of beer without the negative side effects in my life.
Heineken Zero is in my opinion the best of the Non-Alcoholic beer on the market.
Back to the reason for my letter
On 6/07/2020 my wife went into the supermarket on our way to an outdoor BBQ. She came out happy as she said “I found the Heineken Zero you like, in a 12 pack”.
I was surprised as I never saw it in a 12 pack and never saw it in cans.
Here is where the trouble with your marketing starts.
I went back to the same friend’s house 6/13/2020. While talking to someone my friend brought me over one of the Heinekens. I thanked him, opened it and continued talking. Moments later I notice that the beer did not taste right. I looked closer and low and behold it was a REGULAR Heineken. 14 months alcohol free then this….
He and his wife were mortified, and the discussions started as to how sorry they were and how they had no Idea how that happened. Did their son and his friends drink the Zero’s and replace them with regular?
Did the wife’s friend’s bring regular Heineken when they got together? But a 12 pack of cans? Never. They do not drink beer.
My wife digs through the garbage from the previous week and finds the empty Heineken Zero cans and is relieved that she in fact did buy the correct item. The mystery continues.
Two weeks go by and the mystery is solved.
While at the same store my wife sees and studies the same case of cans she bought more closely and realizes that there are 3 Non-Alcoholic beers mixed in with the balance of regular Heineken in the same case.
The packaging of the box has the Zero product very pronounced. I can see where an error such as my wife’s can easily happen.
The “slip up” has not stopped me from my alcohol abstinence and has not deterred me from drinking your terrific Heineken Zero product.
I do feel a need to bring this to your attention as the alcoholic community is very fragile and there is a very real possibility that a “slip up” like this could send a struggling person in recovery into trouble.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I hope you find a way to advertise your terrify product differently.

I have been sober for 14 (+) years until last night. A friend brought over the pack to me being nice as they thought it was all zeros. Thanks a lot Heineken for helping me break a promise I made to myself never to drink again. I was a beer in before I re-looked at the package and realized my friends honest mistake. I will not fall off the wagon, but your marketing department is not helping. Swing….miss.

Hey my son is in training to box and hasn’t drank beer in months. Unbeknownst to him he is drinking and discovers a buzz and later is slurring his words. My son is sick as hell today due to your deceptive packaging to promote alcoholism on people not desiring to drink alcohol. Expect to receive a lawsuit from us as well. Someone could die over your stupid shit! Signed, Angry as Hell😈

They have known of this packaging issue for mo ths and have done nothing about it. If a product had a contaminant in it and it caused a serious health issue i guarantee Heineken would pull it off the ahelf the same day. But in this instance, nope. I made the same mistake and as an alcoholic I was more than upset. They said the would take steps to take care of the issue… that was 2 mo the ago. Product still on the shelf as is.

This is incomprehensible to me. My son and my brother who are both sober fell for the same gimmick. There is no way this company was so clueless as to the misrepresentation of this packaging. I believe that Heineken should be held accountable and fined for every day this product stays on the shelf. A one inch sticker slapped on the box does not fix the problem. I personally would like to see them be called out and make the public aware Of this issue.

Husband 30 years sober and Drank a few before someone said – ummm that is regular Heineken. So now what? We got a refund but you understand the one day at a time concept right Heineken. Now he has only been truly sober for a week since consuming them. There was no sticker on the box – that came after people started complaining. Heineken – maybe a class action lawsuit will help you realize the error and wise up.

I picked up a box that read alcohol free and 0.0 and I noticed as I was drinking out of one of the cans that it read 5%. I think this packaging is not a good idea. Nobody expects two different types of beer in one package and your eye catches 0.0 and you discover that most of it is alcoholic. Not nice!

I am livid! I too, decided to give up on alcohol as of January 1 2020 and happily 3 months later had my husband join me. This decision was not taken lightly and has had its challenges with alcohol promoted at every turn. We have found your product an others NA beers to be to be a wonderful option only to feel duped by your advertising of the +3 0.0s in you box of full strength beer! How can anyone at your company think this was a good idea? Yes, my husband mistakenly drank 2 and I drank several sips before I realized it. I cannot begin to describe our anger. We do not appreciate this misleading advertisement of this beer. Thankfully for us, we can get past this but there are others that you have potentially thrown into a complete tailspin! Take this “promotion “ off the shelves immediately! And I would like to be refunded for this product from the company personally.

I am devastated. I have been doing so good being sober and I had a few of these and I noticed something felt off. This seems intentional on Heinekens part. Sobriety is bad for their business.

I’ve been clean and sober for 4 1/2 years. On a camping trip 7/4/20 my brother-in-law purchased a six pack of Heineken zeros for me to try. I enjoy them. On vacation 8/8/20 and while visiting a friend’s home. While shopping for dinner we saw a case of Heineken zeros. I was so excited, I bought two. I couldn’t find zeros at any stores by my home. I opened the top of the box grabbing three. Upon drinking the first beer I felt something was wrong. We inspected the box and it said it was alcohol free and I trusted the box. I drank three beers. I am no longer clean and sober. 😫 I called Heineken to complain and they offered me a $20 voucher to buy some more beer. I declined. This marketing catastrophe has stripped my sobriety. I now struggle every day every moment every minute to not take a drink. I had been able to resist temptation by the grace of God but now it’s almost like you already had one so just another and enjoy.Because of the pandemic I’m not able to attend celebrate recovery. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Thanks Heineken

After introducing this packaging over 10 weeks ago and knowing the problem it is causing nothing has changed. Why? Let me ask you; what have you done to bring this to the forefront? Has it affected your path towards continued sobriety? Has it caused additional health issues? How is that legal problem? Why are you not all over social media bridging this problem to the forefront? LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter….etc… #changethepackaging

The packaging, the “fix” and the failure to announce the above to those distributing your product is sickening. Do you know how many lives you endangered including my own? This is unacceptable and I expect this combo N/A and original Heineken product to be pulled from ALL shelves, past and present distribution, immediately!

Just noticed the box pictured does NOT have the circle explaining what it is as in the picture. That’s an added graphic. I have the box right here.

Justin, correct. Graphic change on social media, not in store.

Where’s our class action attorney/superhero right about now?
I won’t go into details but it screwed me up real bad and nixed my sobriety! I’m on a serious medication that absolutely cannot be mixed with any amount of alcohol!

Yup it’s gonna happen. The company has had plenty of time to pull this product off the shelves. My neighborhood Liquor store has had customers bring the product back after having relasped. They are willing to support any class action suit

Absolutely disgraceful. A higher ranking Heineken representative called me 3 weeks ago to “share their concern” to the packaging mistake they made in combining regular Heineken and Heineken 00. For those who do not know this product, it is combination of non alcohol beer with beer that contains alcohol. The photograph they now include is totally misleading, the label mentions : ” This is a multipack of” has been digitally added and is not representative of what you would find in retail stores. Since early June Heineken has been aware of this, they get in contact with those on this comment section and ask “we would like to reimburse you”… Really, reimburse for what? The cost of medical attention? The legal costs for those who broke a probationary agreement? How about reimbursing for the cost of a rehabilitation, 30 day program? The only way they could have made this better was to remove the product off the shelf way back in June but no… Why? because the cost associated with doing so is more than than the benefit. I urge you to make mention on every Heineken social media site, tell your story and the issue you faced. #changethepackaging

All you idiots need to learn how to read. The package clearly says it us Heineken beer + 3 cans of the 0,0 beer. All of you recovering alcoholics should not even be drinking.

Can not wait until your class action suit is tossed.

My husband is a recovering alcoholic. He bought this thinking it was all non alcoholic beer. He said it tasted funny but thought maybe it was because it was in a can!! This is a terrible idea!!

This is very misleading way of packaging NA Beer. My wife brought this home from Kroger’s 1/24/2021 for me thinking it was NA. I just found out that they are not all NA in the 15 pack, bottom 3 are NA. I opened one without knowing and got about halfway through and could tell by the taste it was the real thing. Not good a good way to keep my promise of no alcohol to myself. It has been 5 years without a real beer or drink. I will not jump back to drinking alcohol because of this (I made a promise to myself not to so) but it could be an excuse for others to jump back into it. I hope that Heineken changes this carton.

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