Off-premise beverage alcohol dollar sales fell for the first time in more than a year, declining 1.9% for the week ending March 13 as the industry faces tough comparisons due to the shift in consumer purchasing a year ago, as shoppers stocked their fridges as on-premise shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to market research firm NielsenIQ.
“At this time last year, alcohol volume experienced massive shifts from the on-premise to off-premise,” NielsenIQ vice president of beverage alcohol practice Danelle Kosmal wrote in a recap of the past week’s sales. “As we lap those pantry-loading weeks, we are beginning to see the impact with very tough year ago comparisons. However, there are still some bright stars that are outpacing growth from even the biggest off-premise weeks from last year.”
The beer category was the only category to grow, which Kosmal called a “surprise.” Off-premise sales of beer increased 0.4%, driven by hard seltzers (+26.4%). Other segments contributing to growth included hard tea (+44%), non-alcoholic beer (+25%), Mexican imports (+6.4%), other imports (+3.8%) and domestic super premiums (+4.2%).
Offsetting that growth were premium lights (-4.2%), below premiums (-7.6%), craft (-5.2%), cider (-7.1%), and flavored malt beverages excluding hard seltzers (-0.7%).
“Seltzers alone shifted total off-premise alcohol by a percentage point,” Kosmal wrote. “If we were to remove seltzers from the scope, total alcohol would have been down 3% in NielsenIQ off-premise channels.”
Boston Beer’s Truly Hard Seltzer was the beer category’s No. 1 growth brand.
“Truly’s growth was driven by the lemonade and new iced tea seltzers, illustrating that innovation is just as important — or even more important now than pre-pandemic time periods,” Kosmal wrote.
Truly off-premise dollar sales increased 132.2% in the four weeks ending March 13 — nearly triple the growth rate of segment leader Mark Anthony Brands’ White Claw (+51.3%) for the same period.
In addition to hard seltzer providing a boost, convenience channel stores also likely contributed to the beer category’s increased dollar sales. For the week ending March 13, c-store beer sales increased 9.7% compared to the same week last year, whereas grocery beer sales declined 3.1%.
“Given the overall size of beer in c-store, this is likely driving the positive trends for the category for the latest week,” Kosmal wrote.
Although the beer category eked out a tiny bit of growth, wine category dollar sales declined 8.1% compared to the same week last year and spirits were flat. Total fast-moving consumer goods declined 20.7% compared to the same week last year, much steeper than beverage alcohol’s 1.9% drop.
To remove the anomaly of March 2020’s massive stock up week, Kosmal compared beverage alcohol dollar sales to the same week in 2019 and found that all three categories grew in 2021:
- Beer — +17%
- Wine — +19%
- Spirits — +28%.
“This all indicates that alcohol dollars are still far above off-premise norms when comparing to years prior to the pandemic,” Kosmal wrote. “However, as more states open up, we will begin to see these trends flatten in the off-premise.”
To gauge off-premise sales’ (and at-home consumption) potential for decline as more on-premise establishments reopen with fewer restrictions, Kosmal pointed to off-premise beer sales in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott removed all capacity restraints and mask mandates on March 10. In the Lone Star State, off-premise dollars sales of beer declined 4.9% for the week ending March 13. Other states such as Florida (-5.5%) and Illinois (-8.8%) posted off-premise beer declines as well.