Historically, February has been a very slow month for beverage sales and especially non-alc as the Dry January hype fades. I was quite surprised to see that total non-alc sales volume for February pretty much kept pace with January. This is a really strong indicator for another 30%+ year of growth for non-alc.
Off Premise Retail Sales:
$48.5M which is only a 4% decrease of January’s all time high & a 31% YoY increase from 2023
82.1% of the category sales came from non-alc beer, which picked up category share from NA wines and spirits.
Craft NA beer is continuing to pick up market share against all other NA categories, especially against domestic NA beer brands. Maybe time to swap out O'Douls.....
Outside of NA beer, non-alc cocktails saw the 2nd biggest jump in market share while hop waters saw the biggest decline and were almost flat YOY.
February NA promo was effective at driving incremental sales at a $3.2/1 efficiency and displays drove an 18% lift in sales in February.
General Opinions:
At the simplest level, it seems like the products with the most absolute flavor are gaining momentum (Craft beer & RTD cocktails over domestics & hop waters. Consumers are choosing NA beverages as a reward / treat and want to have their taste buds delighted. Anecdotally, it seems like calorie count (at this point of the category’s maturity) isn’t a key driver of purchasing.
Promotional activity in this category seems key to continuing to draw in new customers that stick. This should be a focus for brands and retailers.
Non - Data News:
Continued new non-alc launchs from existing brands. The most recent are Beefeater 0.0%, Tanquerey 0.0%, Blue Moon, Mionetto Prosecco & Sierra Nevada. There seems to be less new brand creation at this time.
This follow the Canadian government last year reducing alcohol consumption guidelines from 12 drinks a week to no more than 2 drinks a week. We are awaiting word from the US government 😅.
