Currently, one Senior Inspector handles all beer label approvals. In 2014, Mr Martin has reportedly approved 29,500 labels.
As consumers and brewers we are concerned that this single-entity approval is detrimental to the industry.There are over 4,500 active brewer permits, increasing each year.
A distributed method would:
a) Reduce number of controversial labels approved
b) Reduce number of rejections that are appealed
c) Anticipate growth of beer SKUs by increasing capacity
d) Provide additional “points of contact” for brewers, media, etc.
Due to the subjective nature of label approval it is in the best interest of the TTB to create a system that allows for consensus and review. We call for the TTB to investigate the feasibility of distributing label approval among several staff.