Consumer buying patterns have drastically changed over the past year, affecting the beverage alcohol industry in many ways. The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted what consumers are buying, where, and how often. Sovos ShipCompliant has examined data from our Product Registration Online (PRO) tool to see just how much consumers’ buying patterns have influenced producers’ new product registrations.
Below is a breakdown of the new product registration data via PRO from the last quarter of 2020 (October, November, December) for spirits, beer and wine.
Spirits
The spirits category continued to have high growth, with gin in the spotlight. For spirits overall, the quarter saw a 15% increase in registrations over Q4 of 2019 but a 13% decrease from Q3 of 2020. Examining the data by types of spirit reveals some wildly different trends:
- Gin registrations were up 455% over Q4 of 2019 and up 77% from Q3 of 2020.
- Rum registrations were up 52% over Q4 of 2019.
- Vodka registrations were up 12% over Q4 2019 but down 13% from Q3 of 2020.
- Whiskey was the only spirit to decrease in product registrations year-over-year with a 2% decrease from Q4 of 2019.
- Tequila registrations were up 32% from Q4 of 2019.
Beer
Beer registrations didn’t see the growth that spirits did. Flavored and specialty malts continued to grow with a 20% increase compared to Q4 of 2019 and a 50% increase in December alone. But ale, porter and stout categories were all down 18% from Q4 of 2019. So when combined, beer registrations were down 4% overall from Q4 of 2019.
Wine
Wine also experienced decline, with an overall decrease in registrations of 7% from Q4 of 2019. Specifically, Rosé was down 14%, table red was down 2% and table white was also down 2% from Q4 of 2019.
Though 2020 was a year like no other, the question is if the consumer trend toward spirits and away from wine and beer will continue in 2021.
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