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Adding Alcohol Units to Products

Products need alcohol unit data for MUP calculations. This guide shows you how to add it.

Why Alcohol Units Are Needed

The MUP app calculates whether a product meets the minimum unit price requirement by: 1. Getting the product's price 2. Dividing by the number of alcohol units 3. Comparing to the minimum unit price (£0.65)

Without alcohol unit data, the app can't perform these calculations.

Methods for Adding Units

Add the custom.total_units metafield directly with the alcohol units value.

Steps: 1. Go to Products in Shopify Admin 2. Select a product 3. Scroll to the Metafields section 4. Click "Add metafield" or find custom.total_units 5. Enter the alcohol units value (e.g., 2.5) 6. Save the product

Example: - 500ml can at 5% ABV = 2.5 units - 750ml bottle at 12% ABV = 9 units - 330ml bottle at 4% ABV = 1.32 units

Method 2: Calculate from ABV and Volume

If you provide both ABV percentage and volume, the app can calculate units automatically.

Steps: 1. Go to Products in Shopify Admin 2. Select a product 3. Add custom.abv_percentage metafield (e.g., 5.0 for 5%) 4. Add custom.volume_ml metafield (e.g., 500 for 500ml) 5. Save the product

Note: If you also add custom.total_units, it takes precedence over the calculated value.

Calculating Alcohol Units

Formula

Alcohol Units = (ABV% × Volume in ml) / 1000

Examples

500ml can at 5% ABV: - (5.0 × 500) / 1000 = 2.5 units

750ml bottle at 12% ABV: - (12.0 × 750) / 1000 = 9 units

330ml bottle at 4% ABV: - (4.0 × 330) / 1000 = 1.32 units

1 liter bottle at 40% ABV: - (40.0 × 1000) / 1000 = 40 units

Using Health Check

The Health Check feature helps you identify products missing alcohol unit data:

  1. Go to MUP Health Check in the app
  2. Click "Run Health Check"
  3. Review the results:
  4. Products with complete data
  5. Products missing data

  6. Products with partial data (some variants missing)

  7. For each product missing data:

  8. Click the product link
  9. Add the required metafields
  10. Save

Bulk Updates

For stores with many products, you can:

  1. Use Health Check to identify all products needing data
  2. Export the list
  3. Update products in bulk using Shopify's bulk editor or import

Note: Metafields can be included in product imports/exports.

Verification

After adding units to a product:

  1. Add the product to cart
  2. Set region to "Scotland"
  3. Check if MUP levy is added (if price < MUP floor)
  4. Verify the levy amount is correct

Common Issues

Units not being recognized? - Verify metafield namespace is custom and key is total_units - Check that the value is a number (not text) - Ensure the product is saved

Wrong levy amount? - Double-check your units calculation - Verify minimum unit price setting - Check product price is correct

Multiple variants? - Each variant needs its own metafield values - Different sizes/ABVs need different unit values - Use Health Check to see which variants are missing data

For more help, see Troubleshooting.