On-premise market

Draught and diet drinks are the winners

Both carbonates and stills lost volume in 2007. The difference was, carbonates more than offset the loss by adding value – ending the year with sales value up 2% to £1.79bn, while stills sales value stayed flat at £631m (refer to chart).

Draught sales held the key. Over the previous five years, packaged drinks had been gaining market share, boosted by new product innovation. But they were hit by 2007’s poor summer, as they tend to benefit from occasion-led purchasing. Draught sales of carbonates, by contrast, are more of a staple purchase by regular pubgoers – so less subject to weather factors. Increased prices also helped lift draught’s market share.

Carbonates also benefited from a good year for diet or no-added sugar variants. While the long-term trend to diet drinks reversed slightly in the take-home market, it is still going strong on-premise: it appears that consumers have been slower to adopt the trend towards health-consciousness when they go out but are increasingly watching the calories on these more indulgent occasions. Diet/no-added-sugar soft drinks grew value share by 2%, accounting for a fifth of on-premise sales value.