The wine industry is feeling the squeeze in the US, according to recent research, losing out to beer and spirits not only with younger LDA consumers but also with ethnic minorities.
Speaking at the ‘Wine Industry Financial Symposium’ in California last week, beverage alcohol consultant Danny Brager provided figures indicating that wine is “competitively disadvantaged among younger LDA [legal drinking age] and multi-cultural consumers”. The data, from NielsenIQ, shows wine continues to under-index markedly against its category competitors.
Among US consumers aged between 21 and 34, wine accounts for 9.2% of total alcohol volumes, according to Brager’s presentation of numbers from this year. For spirits, the figure is 28.7%, while for beer it’s 29.4%. Among black consumers, 9.7% of wine’s share of alcohol volumes again comes in behind spirits [16.4%] and beer [10.7%].
As for Hispanics, beer leads with a 21.7% share, ahead of spirits at 18.5% and wine at 14.4%.
In a report from the conference, The North Bay Business Journal cites Brager saying: “The high-end consumer, the high-frequency wine consumer is decidedly non-multicultural. We need to do a better job of competing in a society that is becoming increasingly larger in terms of its diversity.”
Brager closed his session with five questions for attendees, among them: “Premiumisation is a good thing, but lower [price] tier losses are large: How do you bring younger LDAs into the [wine] category for long-term growth?”
Brager’s presentation at the Wine Industry Financial Symposium can be viewed here.
