And the winners are …
… imports and craft beers. In a preliminary research note, Beer Marketer’s Insights reports that beer sales in supermarkets in 2005 declined 0.1 percent, following a 2 percent drop in 2004 and a 0.3 percent decrease in 2003. Although the research is far from conclusive – only 16 percent of total beer shipments and exclusive of Wal-Mart – it indicates several trends: generally speaking, U.S. consumers are trading up. In the premium segment volume was up 2 percent, in the high-end segment it was up nearly 4 percent. Imports (+4.8 percent ) and craft beers (+7.3 percent ) outshone the domestic beer brands by taking 19.2 percent of all dollar sales in this channel thanks to better pricing (up 1 – 1.5 percent compared with flat pricing for premiums). The erstwhile growth engine for domestic brewers – light beer – has hit some trouble: last year volume in this segment dropped 0.8 percent, in value terms it fell even 1.2 percent.
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