Reader C. was cruising by the beer cooler at his local Hannaford supermarket when he noticed an interesting cross-promotion. There was a mini-shelf attached to the outside of the refrigerator case door, where you might expect to see maybe bottles of chocolate sauce near the ice cream. This mini-shelf in the beer case had… acetaminophen? That’s a pain reliever that can cause liver damage in not-so-high doses, which you shouldn’t combine with alcohol.
“Isn’t acetaminophen NOT the drug to be using after a night of heavy drinking?” wondered C. when sending us this photo.
Yes, yes, wise guys in the audience will question whether Miller Lite can technically be considered “beer” in the first place. The problem, though, is that the warning label on this painkiller specifically tells you not to take it with alcohol, which means it might be okay to take the morning after your party, but not alongside it.
We checked with Hannaford, sending them the photos and the location. Their response: that display is supposed to have packages of cocktail nuts or other snacks that go with beer, and not painkillers that can cause liver damage.
Here’s Hannaford’s full explanation:
The customer is correct that the merchandising of a pain reliever near beer was not planned. There are a handful of items recommended in planned merchandising for that location and all are food items – specifically nuts, lemons or limes.
What occurred happened at the one store the customer visited for a short time because the supply of recommended items at that specific store was too limited at that point in time.
Individual stores do have discretion to merchandise other items when planned item supply is tight. However, the customer is correct the that pairing was out-of-synch with routine merchandising and it did not persist.
We’re not sure how “short” a time that this display was up, since C. reports seeing the display on two different occasions about six weeks apart. Perhaps the store took it down, then put it back.
