Drink sales in bars and restaurants are projected to grow modestly in 2015, according to Technomic's expectations for the on-premise alcohol industry.
Conditions at major chain restaurants that serve alcohol are slowly improving, and greater consumer confidence will lead to a more positive trend than seen in 2014.
Technomic's forecasts call for consumer expenditures on alcohol away from home to rise 2.7 per cent next year, a slightly greater increase than is expected for alcohol expenditures at retail.
"Conditions are improving, and with lower gas prices and better consumer confidence, we're continuing to see positive movement in consumer spending away from home," said David Henkes, vice president at Technomic and director of the firm's adult beverage practice. "However, there's still a lot of lost ground to make up relative to how the industry was performing prior to the recession."
In looking at specific adult beverage categories in on-premise channels, Technomic finds the largest category – beer – challenged in terms of volume. BarTAB Report outlines sales growth of 2.3 per cent for beer in 2015, lower than the projections for wine and spirits.
"Craft beer, cider and imports are generally doing well at the bar, but domestic beer, which accounts for nearly half of on-premise beer sales, continues to lose share," observes Eric Schmidt, director of research at Technomic. Wine is expected to achieve the highest sales growth rate of the three adult beverage categories, with spirits a close second.
The Adult Beverage Insights Group is an executive share group focusing solely on adult beverage in the on-premise channel.
