It may be a new year but trends established in 2020, or previously developed ones that grew throughout last year, are expected to continue and evolve in the beverage category.
According to Coca-Cola Amatil National Manager Category and Channel Strategy Matt Donnelly, four key consumer trends are significantly impacting the beverages landscape in retail.
The first of these is “sheltering at home” with an increased trend to work and study at home (exacerbated by the impacts of Covid-19 restrictions).
Mr Donnelly says this trend led to beverage category growth of 4.4 per cent in Q4 2020, compared with 2.8 per cent for Q1 (IRI Australia Grocery Weighted excl ALDI, $ growth, QTR to 22/11/20).
The next trend he cites is that of rising health awareness, driving “multiple times faster” growth in diet segments across all categories compared with regular beverage ranges.
“For example,” says Mr Donnelly, “for soft drinks, diet variants are growing four times faster than regular. In fact, flavoured CSDs are growing at 25 per cent versus 0.4 per cent for the regular alternatives [IRI Australia Grocery Weighted excl ALDI, $ growth, MAT To 22/11/20].”
A further trend is the “need for energy”.
“The energy [drink] category is now 29 per cent of total sales in petrol and convenience,” says Mr Donnelly, “and 68 per cent of the growth in the category comes from NPD as consumers are excited to try new formats and flavours.”
The final trend noted by Mr Donnelly is e-commerce.
“We’re seeing increased digitisation of all aspects of life, which has been accelerated as a result of Covid-19 impacts,” he says. “For example, e-commerce beverage sales are growing 10 times faster than bricks and mortar sales [CCA Business Intelligence MAT Nov 2020].”
Read more about beverages in the latest issue of Retail World.