Drinks which uplift, energize, and offer shoppers a treat are among those that can help retailers grab their share of more than £1bn ($1.36bn) in the UK’s soft drinks category over the next five years, says Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I.
This means a potential £8,992 in soft drink sales could be unlocked by each of the UK’s 46,388 convenience, symbol, and independent stores, estimates the company (formerly Lucozade Ribena Suntory).
SBF GB&I – whose key brands include Ribena, Lucozade, and MayTea – has identified four consumer need states across the soft drinks category and that retailers can easily tap into: by making they have the right pack, in the right place, for the right occasion.
Seventy pallets of Ribena Sparkling 500ml have been distributed
Suntory Beverage and Food GB&I has distributed £100,000 worth of Ribena Sparkling to more than 40 independent retailers to donate to local charities.
Retailers from symbol groups including Nisa, Londis, Premier, Budgens, One Stop, Spar and Best-One will between them receive 8,884 cases of the product, equating to 70 pallets of Ribena Sparkling 500ml.
The beverage company asked the retailers to nominate charities to distribute the drinks to.
It comes off the back of its existing Growing for Good initiative, that has so far seen 107,000 cases of drinks distributed to community groups and food banks. Some 32,000 cases have been donated to FareShare and FoodCloud during the pandemic.
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If Covid-19 gave us anything, it was a great excuse to drink too much. It might come as a surprise, then, to learn that overall booze sales in the on and off-trade slumped by 35% year on year to 1.3 billion litres in the first lockdown [Nielsen and CGA].
Of course, supermarket booze sales went through the roof with pubs shut for much of the year, surging 19.4% on volumes up 18.1% [Kantar 52 w/e 4 October 2020]. But these gains were dwarfed by the percentage growth of low & no-alcohol beer, spirits, cider and wine. Sales are up 31.2% on volumes up 29.7% [52 w/e 1 November 2020].
That makes them the fastest growing area of adult soft drinks, delivering £44.1m of the category’s £86.5m growth. “Shoppers are increasingly looking to moderate their alcohol,” says Kantar analyst Oliver Bluring. “There are signs sales will continue to grow, with 24.4% of the population buying into low & no alcohol, and new products still coming onto the market.”