Wine New Product Registrations Spike 64% from Q4 of 2020

Both beer and spirits new product registrations continue to see positive growth in Q1 2021

The past year has seen drastic changes in consumer buying patterns, with variation in what is being purchased, where and how often, impacting the beverage alcohol industry in many ways. Sovos ShipCompliant reviewed data from our Product Registration Online (PRO) tool to gauge how market conditions and consumer buying patterns influenced producers’ new product registrations.

The following is a breakdown of the new product registration data via PRO from Q1 of 2021 (January, February, March) for spirits, beer and wine.

Wine

This was a big quarter for wine, including a large increase in the amount of dessert wine new product registrations.

• Overall new wine product registrations were up 37% over Q1 2020 and up 64% over Q4.
• White wines, red and rosé wines, fruit and dessert wines were up 74%, 65%, 64% respectively over Q4.
• Sparkling wine new label registrations were up 18% over Q1 2020 and increased 16% over Q4.

Beer/Malt

Q1 of 2020 was booming for the beer category (Q1 2020 was up 63% over Q4 2019). Though in Q2 when the effects of the pandemic appeared, new product registrations in the channel decreased 45%. As seen in the Q1 2021 new product registrations data, numbers are still far from reaching pre-pandemic levels.

While the overall beer new product registration numbers are down 40% over Q1 2020, they are  up 2% from Q4. Specifically, beer numbers decreased 8% over last quarter while malt (seltzers, etc.) new product registration numbers are up 11% over last quarter. 

Spirits 

The spirits category continues to expand in the pandemic, seeing new product registration growth in each quarter over the corresponding 2020/2019 quarter. Overall, there was a 46%  increase over Q1 2020, with growth of 26% over Q4.

Rum, gin and tequila had new product registration increases of 99%, 90% and 66%, respectively, over Q1 2020. On the lower end, but still seeing new product registration growth, whiskey was up 14% and vodka up 11% over Q1 2020.

While last year was one of great change for the beverage alcohol industry, it seems that 2021 is also off to an incredible start.