Alcoholic drinks remain an ingrained part of many adults’ food and drink repertoires despite many consumers cutting back on their alcohol intake, largely on financial and health grounds. The in-home market has performed better than the out-of-home market in recent years, largely due to the lower prices. Consequently, there has been a notable reduction in drink sales in pubs/bars, in turn leading to the ongoing shrinkage of the nation’s pub estate. Many publicans have turned to improving their food proposition as a means of offsetting falling volume sales of alcoholic drinks.

However, there are some areas of strong growth within the alcoholic drinks market, notably craft beer, Prosecco and dark/golden/spiced rum. Meanwhile, another star performer of recent years – flavoured cider – remains in growth but there are signs of this slowing down considerably. Flavour remains at the forefront of drinks innovation and is now extending into categories such as whiskey and wine, with category blurring becoming more commonplace.

The overall value of the alcoholic drinks market rose by 8% over 2011-15, flatlining at £43 billion in 2015, although it should see a small boost in sales in 2016 due to international sporting events such as the Rio Olympics and the European Football Championships. However, the market’s recent growth has been driven by inflation and the increasing popularity of premium drinks as volume sales declined by 3% over the period and are expected to remain broadly level in 2016.

For the purposes of this Report, Mintel has used the following definitions:

This Report explores usage of, and attitudes towards alcoholic drinks. This includes all types of alcohol, as well as low/non-alcoholic variants of drinks that typically contain alcohol (eg alcohol-free beer). The report excludes soft drinks such as carbonated soft drinks and juices.

Both on- and off-trade sales are included in the total market size.