Challenging comparatives mean Britain’s on-trade drinks sales have fallen year-on-year for the third week in a row.
CGA by NIQ’s Daily Drinks Tracker shows average sales in managed venues in the week to last Saturday (12th October) were 5% down on the same period last year.
October 2023 benefited from warm weather across most of the country and the closing stages of the Rugby World Cup — both of which brought consumers out to pubs and bars in large numbers. The latest numbers continue a difficult run of negative numbers in nine of the last 12 weeks.
Sales were behind on five of the seven days of the week, falling between 6% and 16% from Sunday to Tuesday. However, there were brighter patches of trading. Sales were positive on Wednesday and 3% ahead year-on-year on Friday, before falling back 8% on Saturday.
The Daily Drinks Tracker’s category breakdown shows sales fell year on year across the board. Wine (down 1%) and beer (down 3%) fared better than cider (down 9%), soft drinks (down 6%), and spirits (down 14%).
Atypical weather
“Sunshine and high temperatures at the start of last autumn are inevitably making sales growth very difficult this October,” said Rachel Weller, CGA by NIQ’s commercial leader UK and Ireland.
“The atypical weather means we shouldn’t read too much into year-on-year comparisons, but another week of negative drinks sales growth is nevertheless disappointing.
“Falling inflation and other encouraging economic indicators should be helping to improve consumers’ confidence, but we’re not yet seeing that translate into higher spending on drinking out.”
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