Imports have been one of the few beer segments to consistently record off-premise growth over the past year, and a similar story is playing out in the on-premise, according to NIQ’s on-premise market research arm, CGA.
More than half of beer category volume growth in the on-premise in the past 52 weeks (ending February 25) was attributed to imported beer growth (52%) versus growth from other beer segments (48%), according to CGA. Total beer, flavored-malt-beverage and cider volume increased +3.5% year-over-year (YoY) in the period, while imported beer volume increased +9.5%.
Mexican beer drove 79% of imports’ own growth, followed by Irish (10%), Italian (2%), Japanese (2%) and Holland (1%). Constellation Brands’ Modelo Especial recorded the largest share gain of the import beer segment in the period (+1.3 points, to 21.4%), followed by sister brands Pacifico (+0.8 points, to 4.5%) and Modelo Negra (+0.3 points, to 2.5%). Diageo-owned Guinness was the No. 4 share gainer in the segment (+0.2 points, to 6.5%) and Heineken’s non-alcoholic offering, Heineken 0.0 (+0.1 points, to 0.6%).
The majority of import beer sales in the period were from packaged on-premise sales (61%), rather than draft (39%). However, draft import beers sales recorded a larger volume increase (+12.2% YoY), versus packaged (+7.9%).
Mexican beer alone recorded a +11.5% increase in volume YoY in on-premise channels. States further away from the Mexican border recorded the largest volume gains, including Washington (+22.9%), New York (+22.1%) and Oregon (+20.7%). States closer to the border, which have also likely had Mexican imports available for a longer period of time, performed below the overall segment, including Arizona (+5.6%) and Texas (+6.1%).