As ‘sober curious’ trend grows, major brands tap into non-alcoholic drinks – National | 24CA News
As curiosity in non-alcoholic drinks grows, main alcohol manufacturers are making strikes with sober variations of well-known merchandise like Guinness and Tanqueray gin.
Experts say it’s an indication there’s nonetheless loads of room for progress within the business.
“If I was running an alcoholic beverage company … this is not a space that I would ignore,” stated Joel Gregoire, affiliate director for foods and drinks at market analysis firm Mintel.
Surveys within the U.S. and Canada present shoppers, particularly youthful generations, are more and more slicing again on alcohol consumption. With demand on the rise, the market is predicted to continue to grow.
While Mintel analysis reveals round 15 per cent of Canadians 20 and older don’t drink in any respect, there’s one other, probably a lot bigger group of shoppers that aren’t slicing out alcohol totally, however slicing again — often known as the “sober curious,” stated Gregoire.
“When you’re trying to grow your brand with younger consumers, who are the ones who are generally most open to innovation … that’s where there’s a lot of opportunity,” he stated.
Companies massive and small are seizing on that chance. When Sarah Kate based Some Good Clean Fun, a web site protecting and selling non-alcoholic drinks and alcohol-free way of life content material in April 2021, she stated there have been only a few merchandise in the marketplace for her to drink, not to mention write about.
“Since then, it’s just exploded,” she stated.
Some huge manufacturers have provided non-alcoholic drinks for a very long time, however they weren’t thought of a promoting function, stated Kate – it was a single non-alcoholic beer to seize a small a part of the market that didn’t produce other choices. But now they should do extra.
“In the past two or three years, most of the innovation coming into the market in the non-alcoholic drink space has come from small brands,” she stated, name-dropping Sobrii and HP Juniper as two Canadian manufacturers main the way in which.
Kate has additionally seen a rising development in acquisitions of those small manufacturers, comparable to Keurig Dr Pepper shopping for the ready-to-drink non-alcoholic cocktail model Atypique from a Quebec firm.
And in 2019, Diageo, a multinational beverage firm that features Guinness, Baileys, Smirnoff and Tanqueray in its portfolio, purchased non-alcoholic spirits firm Seedlip.
“They’ve really got the edge,” Kate stated of Diageo.
The firm has launched non-alcoholic variations of a number of well-known merchandise previously couple of years, making a splash with the Canadian launch of its non-alcoholic Guinness this September.
It additionally launched a non-alcoholic Captain Morgan Spiced Gold this yr, a non-alcoholic Tanqueray gin in 2021, and a non-alcoholic Gordon’s gin in 2020. (Of these three, solely Tanqueray is at the moment accessible in Canada.)
“They’re doing the smart thing,” stated Kate. “They’ve done a ton of research into what works in a non-alcoholic format as well as what’s popular.”
The “sober curious” group is rising, particularly amongst youthful generations, stated Diageo’s director of selling for North America, Nadia Niccoli. The pandemic appears to have accelerated this shift, she added, with extra shoppers searching for more healthy choices.
In 2021, a Statistics Canada survey discovered that one in 5 Canadians have been ingesting lower than they did pre-pandemic, with youthful Canadians extra more likely to be slicing again.
“This is something we’ve been working on for quite some time,” she stated. “But the reality is that the rapid change in consumer habits has given us the opportunity to offer more versatility and come to market quicker, knowing that the demand is there versus us trying to create the demand back in 2017, 2018.”
In an business the place small producers have been pushing the envelope for years, huge manufacturers getting in on the motion is a double-edged sword, stated Kate.
Competition from beverage giants could make issues more durable for small manufacturers attempting to get market share, she stated, however it additionally helps the entire business develop.
Diageo isn’t the one well-known firm increasing its non-alcoholic choices.
Asahi final yr launched Asahi Super Dry 0.0%, starting within the United Kingdom and Ireland, and extra lately in North America and different international locations. In a press launch final November, the corporate stated its European and worldwide arm needs 20 per cent of its portfolio to be alcohol-free merchandise by 2030 “as the global market for alcohol-free beverages continues to soar.”
And in January 2022 Corona launched Sunbrew, which incorporates vitamin D (and naturally, no alcohol).
Other firms have launched non-alcoholic drinks that don’t straight mimic their signature merchandise, comparable to Roxie canned non-alcoholic cocktails from Molson Coors and Martini & Rossi non-alcoholic aperitifs.
It takes time and money to develop a great non-alcoholic drink, particularly if you’re attempting to duplicate one thing that many individuals already know the style of nicely. The work on Guinness 0 started in 2020, stated Niccoli.
“These are multimillion dollar launches,” she stated, from analysis to advertising the ultimate product.
When manufacturers launch non-alcoholic variations of their well-known merchandise, they’re taking an enormous threat, Gregoire stated. Connoisseurs of Guinness, for instance, are more likely to discover variations between the 2 drinks.
“This is a massive step from a big company,” he stated.
“So this is really an interesting sign of where the industry is hedging its bets, if you will, and the risks that they are willing to take.”
