If you’re looking for a bright spot heading into the July 4 holiday weekend, Circana EVP Bev-Al Scott Scanlon has you covered.
In the latest weekly off-premise scans recap from the market research firm, Scanlon wrote that we’re “starting to see pockets of growth developing.”
Scanlon pointed to domestic super premium beer taking “the lead as [the] only positive performance” in beer, growing both dollars and volume 3% week-over-week (WoW).
“Will be interesting to watch impact to beer over the next three weeks, perhaps the opportunity the category needed to jump start,” Scanlon wrote.
Due to the data lagging, next week’s report will be the last pre-holiday scans before the holiday weekend data rolls in. Scanlon wrote that he expects “to see at minimum stability across categories with potential build as we head into holiday week data results.”
“Given poor Memorial Day performance, all eyes will be on the 4th of July to see if we can recapture lost sales.”
Beer dollar sales declined 3.9%, while volume dropped 5.4% for the week ending June 22, Circana reported. Although negative, those trends improved upon the previous week (-6.1% dollars, -7.3% volume).
The category only slightly lagged total bev-alc (-3.1% dollars, -4.8% volume) for the week. Spirits posted the strongest week, growing dollars (+1.8%) and volume (+6.5%). Base-agnostic ready-to-drink products (RTDs) posted dollar sales growth (+0.3%), but declined in volume (-4.6%). Wine fared the worst for the week (-4.6% dollars, -5.8% volume).
Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) owned the only two top 10 beer brand families to post growth in the one-week period:
- Michelob +3.9% dollars, +4% volume;
- Busch +4.7% dollars, +2% volume.
Busch’s “brand strength” looked “very healthy,” Scanlon wrote.
Notable double-digit beer growth brands included:
- Constellation Brands’ Pacifico +13.3% dollars, +10.8% volume;
- Constellation’s Victoria +21.2% dollars, 25% volume;
- And non-alc maker Athletic +15.3% dollars, +16.1% volume.
Scanlon also called out several brands:
- Gallo’s High Noon Sun Sips “is once again [a] spirits category leader, which is not a surprise, but timing prior to the Fourth holiday build is,” leap frogging Tito’s;
- High Noon posted +1.6% dollar growth, but volume slipped 9.7%;
- Sazerac-owned BuzzBallz is growing 90% in both dollars and volume;
- BeatBox grew dollars 33.3% and volume 30.7%.