High spirits, low beer

By: Chris Brook-Carter - 18 September 2003 17:16

I spoke to a US analyst contact of mine last night, just after I posted the last blog. He too confirmed that the horizon for the US drinks industry was looking brighter than it had done for some time, across all the major categories - spirits, wine, beer and soft drinks. July, he said, had been particularly good, although August was slower. Though the US is a mature market there was an "uptake in shipment growth", he said.
Most interesting though was his belief that the success in the spirits category was coming, at least in part, at the expense of the beer category. Though this may be in part economic, with consumers once more trading up into the more expensive spirits category, he also believed that young adult per capita consumption of beer was on the decline, and had been for a while now.