USA: First slowdown of alcohol stocking up begins to show during week to March 28 - Nielsen

After consecutive weeks of consumers stocking up on alcoholic beverages at off-premise retailers in mid-March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the first signs of a slowdown began to show during the week ending March 28, according to market research firm Nielsen.

Nevertheless, sales outpaced a typical final week in March, increasing 22% compared to the same one-week period in 2019, and outpacing the growth of total consumer goods, which were up 16%, the firm reported.

Beer, FMB and cider dollar sales increased 17% for the week ending March 28, with all segments growing and several still up double digits, Nielsen reported. Meanwhile, dollar sales of wine and spirits each increased 27% for the week.

Beer, excluding FMBs and cider, increased dollar sales 10%, with super premiums up 18%, craft up 15%, premium lights up 7.5%, budget up 7.3% and imports up 8.7%.

Hard seltzers continued to be the beer category’s growth driver, increasing sales 327% and gaining 2.5 share points during the week, outpacing pre-COVID-19 growth rates, Nielsen reported.

FMBs, excluding hard seltzers, increased 18%, while cider increased dollar sales 15% compared to the same week in 2019, according to Nielsen.

Consumers continued to gravitate toward larger pack sizes (24-packs and up) compared to smaller packs, Nielsen added. During the week ending March 28, 24-packs sales increased 41%, while 30- and 36-packs increased 36% and 33%, respectively.

In a separate weekly report, Bump Williams Consulting (BWC), citing IRI Advantage data for the week ending March 22, noted that beer dollar sales increased 17.1%, to around $769.9 million, compared to the same week in 2019, but the growth rate has slowed compared to the previous two weeks in mid-March.

According to BWC, eight separate hard seltzer brands ranked among the top 15 growth brands in the beer category, including three White Claw SKUs, three Truly SKUs and the variety packs for Bud Light and Corona hard seltzer brands.

BWC also noted that the top 15 vendors, top 15 families and top 15 brands all continued to grow dollar sales during the week ending March 29. However, BWC noted that some “industry-leading craft brands” have started to revert back to pre-COVID-19 trends, including New Beligum’s Fat Tire Amber Ale (-2% for the week ending March 29) and Leinenkugel’s Shandy (-1.1%).

BWC noted that stockpiling trips have reached their weekly peak, and additional stockpiling and replenishment trips have begun to settle in.

06 April, 2020