The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2021 - Issue 29

CLEANCO With participation in Dry January increasing every year since 2013 and more low/no alcohol drinks on the market, Jada Brookes discovers CleanCo’s low alcohol Clean Drinking Revolution. Images courtesy of The Prophets bitedrinks Clean Drinking Revolution W hen Emily Robinson decided to give up drinking in January 2011 after signing up for her first half marathon, she felt health- ier and energised. She also had people interested in her drink-free month experience. The following year, she joined Alcohol Change UK and decided to give up drinking again that January. More people wanted to know more about her experience and the benefits of having a break from drinking, especially after Christ- mas. Thus, Dry January was born in 2013 with 4,000 people. The first Dry January campaign saw writer Alastair Campbell talk about his past drinking experiences and columnist Peter Oborne went a month without drink- ing alcohol. The charity and campaign group sought alcohol behaviour change expert Dr Richard de Viss- er from the University of Sussex’s help to survey the people doing Dry January to see what effects the cam- paign had on them. It was discovered that six months after the campaign had finished, seven out of ten peo- ple had continued to drink less riskily than before. Since then, the number of people taking part in Dry January has increased tremendously, with over 100,000 participants signing up in 2020. An article in the New Scientist suggested refraining from drink can have an effect on your body as well as your mind. “What you have is a pretty average group of British people who would not consider themselves heavy drinkers, yet stopping drinking for a month alters liver fat, choles- terol and blood sugar and helps them lose weight.” Although low or no alcohol drinks have been around for a while, it seems, in the last year or so, there has been a massive increase in brands offering consum- ers an alternative to high alcohol content. CleanCo, founded by television personality Spencer Matthews and business partner Justin Hicklin in 2019, is an in- novative low ABV (alcohol by volume) drinks brand