More than 40 beverage companies and their leadership have joined forces as the founding members of the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association (ANBA), an industry trade organization created to support companies in the non-alcoholic beer, wine, and spirits spaces.
Established in July and announced today, the association will be led by Marcos Salazar, who will serve as CEO. Salazar is the co-founder and CEO of Be Social Change (a social impact events group), as well as the founder of the For All Drinks podcast discussing “booze-free drinks.”
ANBA will have an 11-member board, chaired by Bill Shufelt, co-founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing Co.
“We look at how the Brewers Association has done such an amazing job harnessing everything that’s great about craft beer,” Shufelt told Brewbound. “We’re not necessarily out to compete with the Brewers Association or the Beer Institute or anyone we’re representing. … There are a lot of unique challenges [with non-alc], and we’re excited to share a lot of the learnings Athletic has learned over the last four years, five years with people who are not even opening their doors yet.”
Other board members include:
- Jeff Stevens, Wellbeing Brewing founder;
- Ted Fleming, Partake Brewing founder and CEO;
- Mark Livings, Lyre’s Spirits co-founder and CEO;
- David Crooch, Ritual Beverage Company co-founder;
- Amanda Thomson, Thomson & Scott founder and CEO;
- Anika Sawni, Grüvi co-founder and CMO;
- Sharelle Klaus, DRY Botanical Bubbly co-founder and CEO;
- Bill Gamelli, Mocktail Beverages founder and CEO;
- Eddie Simeon, Hella Cocktail Co. co-founder and CMO;
- and Pauline Idogho, Mocktail Club founder and CEO.
Globally, the NA beverage segment is expected to grow to $30 billion by 2025, according to an ANBA press release, citing Global Market Insights. In the U.S., dollar sales for NA spirits (+113.4%), NA beer (+31.7%) and NA wine (+39.4%) have each grown over the last 52-week period, according to the ANBA, citing NielsenIQ data.
As the non-alc segment continues to grow, many beverage producers are considering playing in the adult non-alcoholic beverage space. Shufelt said the space has unique challenges that traditional alcoholic beverage segments do not, such as a lack of universal regulations and guidelines for international trade and expansion.
“Non-alcoholic has so many more challenges on the regulatory and food safety realms than alcoholic beverages, which is kind of counterintuitive to what people would normally think,” he explained. “Food safeties is one, as well as the different regulatory bodies like FDA, local, state, consumer protection, federal [and] TTB.”
Shufelt began discussing a possible solution with other producers more than a year ago, and they brought on Salazar, who had his own network of companies expressing similar concerns.
“I got to know tons of these amazing entrepreneurs that were creating these really delicious and innovative beverages, and started to see that the space was so new that there wasn’t a lot of infrastructure and people were operating on their own,” Salazar told Brewbound. “They weren’t being as connected, and — more importantly — there wasn’t a unifying voice.”
Among the challenges, Salazar pointed to regulations for NA brands in terms of labeling and shipping direct-to-consumer.
“So for us as an association, we can provide the resources to be able to help early stage brands that are jumping into the space to help navigate that regulatory and industry standard process,” he said.
ANBA hopes to provide a solution to these issues through the following:
- Educating and engaging all stakeholders to accelerate industry growth;
- Creating industry and regulation compliance standards for the industry;
- Developing advocacy, policy, and government affairs strategies that protect and support its members;
- Providing the latest industry insights and trends;
- Leveraging collective buying power for member discounts on business tools and services;
- Providing professional development, networking, and business support to members.
In addition to aiding producers, retailers, and suppliers, Salazar said ANBA will also work to educate consumers on non-alcoholic adult beverages through community events.
“It’s going to be a really amazing community of people that are working collaboratively with an understanding that if we grow the overall categories, share and partner that everybody, individual businesses will grow,” Salazar said.
Founding ANBA members include: Athletic Brewing, Ritual, Mocktail Club, Thomson & Scott, Gruvi, Mocktails, Hella Cocktail, WellBeing Brewing, Lyre’s Spirits Co., Dry Botanical Bubbly, Partake Brewing, H2OPS, Ferm Fatale, CERIA Brewing, TÖST For Bitter for Worse, Betera, Rock Grace, Seir Hill, Isnt Distinctivos, Teetotaler Wines, Discoe Beverages, Rightside Brewing, Al’s Drinks Company, Top Note Tonic, Best Day Brewing, Buonafide 0.0, Drink SipC, Starla Wines, Spirity Cocktails, Free Spirits, Spiritless, Acid League, Hairless Dog Brewing, Amethyst, Rationale Brewing, Wilderton, Leader Brewing, Woodnose, Atmos Brewing Co., and Go Brewing.
“We’re really just getting started,” Shufelt said. “Take the BA for example: People like [Sierra Nevada founder] Ken Grossman and [Boston Beer founder] Jim Koch and New Belgium, they all did such incredible things, paving the road for people who came behind them and all the work they put into the BA and growing the craft beer industry. We really want to try to emulate that for the non-alcoholic beverage companies.
“We do think that the wind’s going to be blowing in this segment for decades to come and we think it could be huge, but we want to do it right and do it safe at the same time,” he concluded.