April 12, 2025 • 37 mins
The beverage landscape isn't just evolving—it's completely transforming. Today's consumers aren't thinking "I'll have a beer" but rather "How do I want to FEEL right now?" Fascinating insights from beverage expert Brandy Rand on the future of drinking. #BeverageTrends
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
No matter what source you use, that younger
generations are drinking lessalcohol than previous
generations, and a lot of thatdoes have to do with the fact
that cannabis is more sociallyacceptable.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hello friends, old and new, and welcome to Drinks
with Caroline.
I'm so happy you've joined mefor what I believe will be
another stimulating conversationwith an industry expert,
founder or otherwise fabulousperson in the consumer industry.
I want to welcome the amazingBrandy Brand to Drinks with
(00:42):
Caroline.
It's a little earlier than onemight normally start drinks, but
hey, drinks range fromeverything from caffeinated to
alcohol to who knows what, andthere is no better expert on the
industry to tell us about thisthan Brandy Rand and Brandy.
I'm going to introduce you andask you to then tell us a little
bit about your background andyour experience across alcohol
(01:05):
in particular, but across theindustry in general.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Sure.
Well, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Always fun to chat with you.
So I have been in the beveragealcohol industry for over 20
years and I started off on thesupplier side.
So I worked with a companycalled Allied de Mec that got
bought by Pernod Ricard and thenI was at Bacardi for about six
years and I've done quite a fewroles on the supplier side, but
I'm known most recently for myrole at IWSR drinks market
(01:32):
analysis.
There I was the chief strategyofficer, spent over seven years
working with data and insightsand advising some of the you
know, top 20 global beveragecompanies in the world around
their strategy what people aredrinking, what category is going
to be hot next.
So that's been a bit of a focus.
I love data, I love insights, Ilove kind of predicting the
(01:54):
future.
So beverage industry is a funplace to be right now.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
It's always a fun place to be.
What I'm learning from being onvarious boards is that data is
ever more important.
It's so critical to being astrong marketer, so never mind
understanding what the trendsare and have been, but
understanding how effective yourmarketing is, so more and more.
(02:19):
I have just incredible respectfor anyone who knows how to look
at the data and analyze iteffectively, because you can get
lots of different conclusionsfrom the same data, and getting
it right is really important.
I've always found your work tobe so, so helpful.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, Thank you.
Well it's.
It's always there's a lot ofdata, probably almost too much
data right out there, but thekey point, as you say, is I
always would say that there'sdata and then there's analysis
and then there's insight.
Right, so data is a bunch ofnumbers.
Usually, spending the time toanalyze the data what does it
say, what does it mean and thenactually saying for an insight
well, how does this affect yourbusiness, how does this affect
(02:52):
your brands?
It becomes a really importantkey factor, and so I think those
of us that get in data overload, the most important thing is
say what is the data telling usand how do we look at multiple
data sources and kind of put itall together to tell a story.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And you're amazing at that.
So let's talk about the factthat the industry has been in
turmoil.
I think would be a fairanalysis because biggest beer
brands under a lot of pressure,biggest spirits brands under a
lot of pressure I think volumehas actually been negative
across much of alcohol for along time.
Wine is struggling.
Can you give us yourperspective, especially if you
(03:26):
go back a decade, look at wherewe are today, post COVID, and
maybe help us as an audienceunderstand what could be on the
horizon in the next severalyears?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Listen, everything goes through sort of
generational shifts.
And if you look back evenfarther than 10 years, back in
the days of kind of the Mad Menand the liquid lunches and stuff
, bourbon was the number one,you know, selling spirit right,
or whiskey was, and then the 70scame along and then vodka
became more popular and then wehad some sort of shifts.
I mean, everything is a bitgenerational in terms of shifts
(03:59):
and preferences.
And you see this even globally,right In markets like Italy and
France, where your parentsdrank a lot of wine and the
younger generation is moreinterested in beer and cocktails
.
So I think, if we look at itfrom that, same with
Birkenstocks and mom jeans andall this type of stuff, right.
So if we look at the I think atthe alcohol industry in that
(04:31):
perspective, there are somelittle slight shifts that happen
and they're based ongenerational preferences.
Overall, specifically with thespirits industry, if you look
back over the last 20 years,we've been in this golden era of
cocktails right.
So everybody has beenrediscovering gin and cognac and
whiskey and drinking oldfashions and Negronis.
And we've had this generationfor the past 20 years where
(04:54):
getting a really great classiccocktail or going to a good bar
and having a good bar program isvery normal.
But it wasn't.
If you remember, caroline,probably 15, 20 years ago you
couldn't go to a dive bar andask for a Negroni, and I think
now you probably can.
So there are some big shiftsaround.
I think, just generationalchanges like that.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, cocktails are fun.
In fact, I was just thinkingit's pretty it's so early
because I'm starting to getexcited about the idea of having
one.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
You could have a non-alcoholic cocktail.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
You could yes we're going to get into that in some
detail.
So these generational shiftsare really interesting.
Can you weigh in a little biton how much you think the
legalization, or almostlegalization, of marijuana and
CBD and so on might have been afactor in the slowdown in
alcohol?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
consumption.
You know that's always a bigdebate, depending on who you ask
, whether you think thatcannabis has an effect or
doesn't have an effect.
And I think there's been plentyof studies where you look at
states like Colorado orWashington State, where you've
had legalization of cannabis,recreational legalization, and
then you look beverage alcoholconsumption and you don't really
see that big of a change and alot of it is just because people
(06:04):
were buying cannabis when itwasn't legal before and that
doesn't really change the factor, right, we just try to track it
better.
I do think that youngergenerations and this is sort of
well documented across many,many studies, no matter what
source you use that youngergenerations are drinking less
alcohol than previousgenerations and a lot of that
(06:26):
does have to do with the factthat cannabis is more socially
acceptable.
Right, it's become morenormalized.
It's much, it's much morenormal for for people you know
now you see people doing gummiesand having cannabis and all
that it's much more kind ofnormal.
It doesn't have the same socialstigma where, if you were to ask
maybe a boomer or my generation, which is a Gen X generation,
(06:47):
you know we didn't grow up withthat being legal and so it's one
of those things where you kindof how you grow up, the factors
around you socially shape howyour future habits are of
consumption.
I think this is a reallyimportant factor when you look
at Gen Z, which we talk a lotabout important factor.
When you look at Gen Z, whichwe talk a lot about, they have
(07:07):
grown up under a different setof social, political, health.
A lot of things have happenedin their young life that will
shape their future decisionsaround health, around wellness
and how they choose to livetheir lives.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It's so true, I mean.
One of my favorite observationswas being at my niece's wedding
.
She's 30.
And a couple of hours into thewedding, when the venue was
going to move somewhere else,they made an announcement saying
could you please order somealcoholic drinks, Because we
haven't made our minimum.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's crazy.
I mean, I can't even imaginelike my wedding we ran out In
our generation.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
that was the norm.
You went way over the limit ofyour minimum, of your minimum.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
This is a big thing that I personally believe in
Some people who say, well, whenthose Gen Zers get a house and
they have kids and they get amortgage and they're working and
all that, they'll startdrinking wine just like the rest
of us.
Right, that there is somethingto be said for.
You know, as you age maybe youget more income, you start to
buy nicer wine, nicer spirits,and I think that ultimately you
(08:08):
know again generationally, howthis generation has grown up
fully in social media, been onphones since they were very
young.
They have grown up again withthe socialization of cannabis
and they're also their parentswere the big cocktail folks,
right, so they're kind of likeall right, what's new and what's
interesting for me?
And I think when we look at theinnovation happening in the
(08:28):
general beverage space, acrossnot only you know CBD beverages,
across ready to drink beverages, across nootropics and
adaptogens and just really coolclean energy drinks and like
there's just so much happeningin beverage that there is also
more choice for this generationto drink different things that
(08:48):
fulfill different needs for them.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, and it's very exciting.
The packaging is exciting andthe, you know, often you'll have
a celebrity behind it.
So there's amazing innovationfor sure in beverages and it's
crossing segments.
So I loved your description ofvarious need states that the
consumer has, includingcaffeination, and you know I
(09:11):
think you have three of themthat you highlight.
So could you talk a little bitabout that, because I do think
that everything starts with theconsumer.
So you know, you can have agreat brand, but if the consumer
is not ready for it or doesn'tunderstand it, or just the
timing's wrong, it can be a biguphill battle.
But talk about the consumerneed state.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I did something at BevNet actually called drinking
our feelings, and I can't takecredit for coming up with that,
the idea.
I've sort of expounded on it.
But I um years ago there was aGen Zer on on TikTok who was
talking about beverages and shesaid beverages for her were such
a an aesthetic.
And there's this whole idea ofdrinking multiple beverages at
(09:51):
once and she's like I like tocaffeinate, hydrate and
alleviate.
So the idea of caffeinate,hydrate and alleviate is so
simple and just for me hit sucha bullseye on, I think, how
consumers, particularly thisgeneration, is looking at
drinking and consuming beverages.
And then there was this wholething that spawned on TikTok,
(10:12):
where everybody started postingpictures of their diet Coke or
their Celsius for theircaffeination, and then there was
their bottle of electrolytewater or collagen water for
hydration or coconut water, andthen they had their alleviate,
and their alleviate could havebeen an alcoholic beverage like
sparkling wine or beer or acocktail or a CBD beverage.
And so for me, when I thinkabout that, it's like consumers
(10:35):
are looking at mood states.
They're looking at how theyfeel and choosing how they drink
based on how they want to feel.
Do I want to calm down?
Do I want to energize?
Like, what kind of mood stateam I in?
And this has become even moretrue.
Like when, when I look at theamount of innovative beverages,
there's so many of them thatdon't categorize themselves as a
(10:57):
tea or a coffee or a water oran energy drink or a beer.
There's a lot of these brandscoming out that the names are
like calm and happy and you know, you don't even know what's in
the can, because a lot of theseare canned beverages where it's
just a really cool packaging,like you said, some really great
fun flavor and then someemotive state.
(11:18):
That's what people are sort ofchoosing.
And so I always look at thatand say, wow, us in the industry
, particularly on the data side,we love to categorize stuff.
Right.
It's how we collect data, howwe look at trends.
We love to put things incategories and I think there are
so many beverages that arecoming out now that defy
categorization or are more crosscategorization, and I think
(11:40):
that consumers are actuallycategory agnostic.
I don't think that a lot ofpeople necessarily think I want
a particular category.
I think they think that a lotof people necessarily think I
want a particular category.
I think they look at a bunch ofthese things and they're
picking flavor or they'repicking function Again.
Caffeinate hydrate alleviateLike what am I?
What do I?
How do I want to feel?
I think that's driving beverage.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
If the person who posted that on social media
hears this, please let me knowwho you are and I'll give you
credit.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Her name's Sophia Peloton.
Yeah, she's the one who sort ofstarted that and I think you
know I love looking at thingsthat are happening outside of
our industry to give perspectiveto what's happening in the
industry, because so often whenyou're in the beverage space
you're just very focused on kindof what's going on and trying
to understand the trends withineach category or between
companies and between brands,but ultimately, to your point,
(12:27):
it's what is happening in theworld.
Generally speaking, that isaffecting how consumers are
choosing brands and how they arechoosing beverages, and a lot
of it has to do with larger, Ithink, societal factors.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I absolutely agree with you.
And just to your point of moodstates, I had the privilege of
working with Happy Dad Salsa andthe idea is, you know, just
because you've become a parentdoesn't mean you can't really
enjoy an alcoholic beverage.
Maybe you want a little lesssugar, a little healthier, and
Happy Dad Salsa has been one ofthe fastest growing ready to
(13:03):
drink beverages, even though thesalsa category is weak.
So I think it really speaks tofinding that mood state or that
moment with the consumer.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I mean that's a lifestyle too.
I mean I think there's a lot ofgreat brands like Athletic
right, which you know fantasticnon-alcoholic beer that you know
, you know very well, it's alifestyle brand, right, and I've
heard Bill say he didn't go outto say, hey, we're pushing like
non-alcoholic beer.
As much as this is a lifestyleof people who care about their
health and who are fitnessenthusiasts.
And I think there's a lot ofbrands that, if you look at the
(13:33):
brand they are whether it iscelebrity or an influencer or
just a particular lifestyle,whether you know it's your dad
and you know you're a happy dadit's about a lifestyle and
connecting with people in waysthat is a motive that they can
really identify with, becausethat's how they're prioritizing,
how they want to live Well.
One of the cool things was.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I gave some of my happy dad's salsa to my dog
trainer and his face went intoshock and he goes how did you
know?
I'm like know what?
And he said we're pregnant,we're going to have a baby.
I said I didn't know, but itwas such delight for him to have
this brand, it was so cute.
I think that these big societaltrends are so important to
(14:15):
consumer space in general, andone of them is that the consumer
is finally aware that the oldfood pyramid doesn't work.
There's GLP-1 coming onto themarket which can affect how much
people eat and drink and whatthey eat and drink, and then
there's also that we're going alittle backwards in terms of
socializing, a little bit ofnesting and hibernating.
(14:35):
So what roles do you seebeverages playing in helping
people get out to enjoy life ormeeting them where they are?
You've talked a lot about theneed states, but also the
blurring of lines.
It would just be interesting tohear your perspective on how
you see that playing out.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting point around the
fact that we socialize less.
I think it's something that alot of folks, particularly in
the alcohol industry, arerecognizing, because it's always
been let's go have a drinkafter work, let's go meet for
drinks, let's, you know, have abeer, right.
And that whole idea of alcoholbeing central to socialization,
I think has shifted quite a bit.
(15:13):
Certainly, with COVID, peoplebecame more at home and started
doing more things at home and Ithink also the rise of
technology right, people areFaceTiming and doing Teams,
chats and doing video games anddoing all of this stuff where
there's this idea that we areconnecting, but we are not
connecting in person, we areconnecting through a device, and
(15:33):
so it's a very interesting, Ithink, dichotomy and a lot of
like psychologists andsociologists are looking at this
younger generation and the factthat they're very lonely and
that they don't know how tosocialize and they don't know
how to meet people face-to-face.
So that is a bit of, I think, acrisis, certainly in terms of
how we get to interact more, andI think beverages always have
(15:54):
this role.
It's a dual role.
First of all, people love beingable to choose what they want,
and I think that there's thisidea of beverages as social
signaling.
So it started with cocktails.
Like what you're holding inyour hand when you're at a bar
you order, what brand you call,says a lot about who you are,
just like with clothing andbrands of shoes and all these
things.
So I think beverages havecertainly evolved in the last 15
(16:17):
or 20 years to be what brandthat you hold in your hand or
that you buy or that you post onsocial media says a lot about
who you are.
So beverages have elevated to,I think, becoming like a handbag
or a pair of Nikes, right, andthat's a big change in the
industry.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
You know what's interesting?
You go to New York and spend$25 on a cocktail and you think
that's insane.
That's going to be gone in 30minutes, but compared to buying
a Hermes handbag, it's a steal.
So you've got your badge,albeit temporary, but it is
affordable.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's something you can have if you're like, yeah, I
can't afford, you know, thattrip to Europe, but I might as
well have my Aperol Spritz andfeel like I'm there.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I do think that that's a big piece of that,
which is what I drink and howI'm drinking and how I'm showing
people what I'm drinking onsocial media is a reflection of
of who I am and how I'm feeling.
That piece of it and then thesecond piece, so there's an
individuality around it that Ithink is really great.
The second piece then becomesaround well then, how do I do
that with other other people?
And I do.
(17:28):
I think that that that's a bigchallenge right now.
Is is is making sure you'rebringing people back to bars and
restaurants, that people aresocializing more, but also the
inclusivity.
So the movement in the adultnon-alcoholic space has been
very much around inclusivity,meaning there are people that
like to go out, but it's alwaysbeen let's go out for a drink or
let's go to a bar, and ifyou're at a really fancy
(17:48):
cocktail bar or a sports barwatching a game and all your
friends are drinking, you canfeel really left out.
And so I think what's going tobe really great for helping
socialization in person is thefact that the adult
non-alcoholic category is givingpeople options to go out in
those settings but havesomething to drink that looks
like and tastes like analcoholic or an adult beverage,
(18:09):
so that they don't feel likethey're ordering a water or
having to explain themselves asto why they're not drinking.
So that's why, as you know,I've been spending a lot of time
on the adult non-alcohol space,because I believe it's sort of
the future of inclusivity andthe future of how we're going to
drink.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I love that.
So tell me more about where youthink the consumer is going to
spend their dollars in the adult, non-alcoholic the ANA world.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I'm pushing the ANA thing out here.
The reason why is because if wesay non-alcoholic of course I
mean people who sell coffee andtea and soda and stuff are like,
well, we're non-alcoholic,right, but in the alcohol world
we like to call anything that'snot doesn't have an alcohol kind
of non-alcoholic.
But it obviously has a dualmeaning.
So adult non-alcoholic meansthese are products that again
(18:59):
are targeting the kind of adultsin an alcohol occasion.
So they are things that tasteand look like beer, wine,
spirits or cocktails, but youalso have alcohol kind of
adjacent and these are productsthat, like a Gia, for example,
that doesn't call itself a beeror a wine or a spirit but it is
a ready to drink, it has a funkind of alcohol flavors, like a
spritz flavor, but hasadaptogens and things like that.
And I think this space, I meanit's growing.
(19:20):
It's one of the only categoriesright now across beverage
alcohol and I would say even intraditional beverages, you get
these double digit growth.
You know, 20, 30, 40% in adultnon-alcoholic over the past year
on a small volume base.
But what this shows you is thatthere's a lot of enthusiasm and
momentum around the category.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yes, for sure, and I have tried many.
I'm, you know, a fan of Kin anda number of others.
I do have to say overall I findthat some taste way too much
like an ordinary soft drink, butthey cost more.
So I think the challenge that Isee for brands is how to make
it taste as if it has thattexture or specialness of having
(20:02):
alcohol in it and maybe be surethat the bartender is creating
that magic with it.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
There's a lot of technology.
Dealcoholization is a verycomplicated thing, so
dealcoholizing.
So there's different ways youcan create products that are
non-alcoholic.
There is taking an alcoholicproduct and dealcoholizing it
and there's a lot of othertechnology around that.
So for wine and beer and forspirits, right, you have to go
through a process, it'sexpensive, it's complicated and,
(20:33):
yeah, it can be challenging, Ithink, particularly for some of
these categories, to get thesame.
You know, when you're aging awine for 15 years or aging a
bourbon for five, six years, youknow it's hard to replicate
that type of thing.
But I do know the technology isgetting better around the
viscosity, the burn, that thingthat you get from alcohol.
That gives you the weight.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Oh, let's just repeat that viscosity and burn,
because I didn't know what I wasmissing, but that must've been
it.
I don't know if there are otherthings.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
For spirits.
Yeah, I think for spirits beeris the biggest adult
non-alcoholic category,non-alcoholic beer, because it's
been around the longest, um,it's the one that tastes the
closest to real beer, if youknow, and and that has been,
it's again de-alcoholization ishard but it tastes the closest.
Wine has been, um, gettingbetter.
There are more and more brandscoming out, but again, a lot of
(21:19):
wines I think particularly thesparkling wines and the white
wines are much closer becausethey tend to be aged less.
It's when you get to those, theweightiness of the red wines,
the things you get from agingand sitting in oak, that can be
hard to sort of replicate.
And I think for spirits it'sthe burn piece, right, so you're
talking about 40%.
You know alcohol, that's a lotand that burn is something that
(21:41):
I think a lot of the spirit,non-alcoholic, spirit brands are
kind of working towards.
And you know, you're right, howdoes the bartender mix that
type of thing right To make itso it's not just like a bunch of
juice RTDs that you mentioned,which stands?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
for ready to drink.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yes, so you don't have to go through
de-alcoholization for those.
Most of those ready to drinkbrands are sort of creating a
flavor profile.
Most of them are carbonated, soit doesn't surprise me that you
would think, hey, these are veryclose to maybe like a soft
drink or something else that Ihave had before, because the
flavor profiles and the way thatit's produced could be the same
(22:15):
.
However, I think a lot of theadult non-alcoholic RTDs, they
tend to have more of thosecocktail flavors.
They tend to be a little bitstronger, more bitter.
Also, a lot of them have thefunctional types of benefits.
So I do see that a lot of themwhen I personally will pour them
into like a glass with ice, Iput a garnish, like I treat it
(22:36):
like a cocktail right, becausethey are ready to drink
non-alcoholic cocktails.
So yeah, I mean I think there'sa lot of really great brands
out there that are kind ofscratching the itch, if you will
, for people who are like I kindof want that thing that tastes
like cocktail and feels specialand feels premium, so that I'm
out and drinking that withsomebody else and I think we're
getting there.
(22:57):
I mean, I think there's a lotof really great brands and
there's so much great innovationgoing on in this space.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Do you want to call out any of the brands that you
think our listeners and viewersshould try?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, I get this question a lot.
I mean, you and I had, I think,when we were having dinner in
LA not too long ago.
We had Naan, which was a reallygreat wine proxy.
So there's a lot of wineproxies that are great out there
.
One called Proxies actuallyNaan is great.
I find that those brands do somereally interesting things with
flavors, but they're not callingthemselves a Cabernet Sauvignon
or they're not callingthemselves Pinot Grigio.
(23:29):
They are in a wine bottle andthey kind of have the flavor
profiles and they feel like wineand I think that's those brands
are really, really interesting.
On the RTD side, I love Dessoir, I love Kin, I love Parch, I
love Santa Cresta's Fonina Grani.
I think they do a great job.
There's so many good brands outthere Any spirits brands you
(23:50):
want to call out.
You know, on the spirit side, Ihave had probably a little bit
of a harder time because, likeyou said, it depends so much on
what you mix it with ultimatelyBecause, remember, most spirits
are meant to be a base and thenyou modify and you add stuff to
it.
So I've always had sort of haddifferent brands that taste a
little bit different dependingon how I mix it.
(24:12):
So that's been, I feel, like alittle bit more challenging.
But I know again there is somebetter technology coming out
around some of those.
But yeah, I think that that'sreally dependent on who's making
the drink to really make thosestand out.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, I recently had Bill Shufelt, the founder of
Athletic Brewing, on, and what Ithink Athletic has done is
really raised the bar on thequality and flavor and richness,
and it's just a delight todrink any of those flavors.
I am on the board so I'mpotentially biased, but I truly
do enjoy their drinks so much,and so I feel that, with the
(24:49):
wine and spirits category, themore innovation we see and as
you talk about the technologyand Athletic has spent a fortune
marketing its product, heinekenZero.
Zero has spent money, and Ithink there will be more money
going into non-alcohol beer Ithink that the real opportunity
rests both in product evolution,but also in giving the consumer
(25:12):
a reason to try them, havingthem available on premise so
that you can have a try whereyou're not buying a pack, you're
just buying one, and remindingus that it's important to go out
and be social, and the localpub or restaurant is a great
place to have interactions,which I think we're sadly
missing as a society more thanever, especially with gaming and
(25:35):
online gambling rising.
So I'm hoping that we start tosee much more marketing going
into this category as well.
This adult non-alcohol category.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, you're right.
I mean the marketing is.
Why, again, beer is a biggercategory is because there's
bigger players and more peopleare investing behind the beer
category.
A lot of the adultnon-alcoholic brands that
they're all still pretty smallcomparative to bigger brands and
it costs money to do marketingand a lot of them, because they
are non-alcoholic, do the directto consumer route and they
spend a lot of their money on,you know, instagram and social
(26:09):
media, where they're trying tocapture consumers, because it's
a more cost effective way to doit.
It costs a lot of money to runads you know traditional prints
and TV ads but I do thinkconsumer awareness of the
category is getting higher.
One stat that I always findreally interesting and if you're
any kind of a brand marketer,you know how hard it is to get
new consumers into a brand or acategory right.
(26:31):
It's usually very, verydifficult and the adult
non-alcoholic category is ableto recruit kind of new drinkers,
people who have never been inthe category before every year,
which means that the addressablemarket, meaning the number of
people that still arediscovering the category, is
still really small, which meansthat there's a big opportunity
there.
And what I find is reallyinteresting is that a lot of the
(26:54):
people that are coming into thecategory are coming from soft
drinks and water and energydrinks as well as alcohol.
So I think in the alcoholindustry we always look at like
what's the share ofnon-alcoholic beer going to be
of the beer category?
But really we should be askingwhat is the share of
non-alcoholic beer going to bein the beverage category?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I love that, the blurring of the lines.
I mean the consumer's notthinking, oh, I'm going to drink
an alcoholic beverage or youknow, and it's going to be beer.
They're thinking about what doI feel like?
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, and I think and there's a lot of really
interesting stats whereparticularly the younger
generation that usually ifthey're saying they're not
drinking, so like I'm notdrinking tonight I have to study
or I'm working out in themorning or I doesn't feel like
drinking and they usually woulddrink energy drink or water or
soft drink they're trading upright to a adult non-alcoholic
(27:44):
beverage because it'ssophisticated, more flavor is
more interesting for them.
Then you see a lot of people whoare traditional drinkers, a
little bit of the oldergeneration that has been the big
drinkers of a driving thealcohol category the last 20
years.
That is deciding maybe I don'twant to have a drink.
Then they're actually goingfrom the alcohol category into
adult non-alcohol, so it'spulling from kind of both.
(28:05):
And so I view the adultnon-alcohol category categories
in kind of the middle oftraditional beverages,
traditional non-alcoholicbeverages and alcoholic
beverages, and so theaddressable market becomes much
bigger and the opportunity againfor people entering the space,
whether they drank alcoholbefore or not, is much, much
bigger, which is why I think thecategory is really going to
grow exponentially over the nextfive, 10 years.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, I think so.
When you talk about newtechnologies, are there any
specifics, that any areas inparticular that you think we're
going to see?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
improvement in.
Like anyone, I've read a lotabout this stuff and I'm
anxiously looking to try a lotof these new brands I've heard.
I mean there's very interestingthings happening, you know, in
Europe.
You know Europe is kind of moreof the home of adult
non-alcoholic it's.
If you go to Europe you seezero proof or non-alcoholic
options on all the cocktailmenus and distributions there.
(28:54):
I mean, in markets like Germany, for example, non-alcoholic
beer is already like almost youknow five, six, seven, 8% share
of beer right.
The categories are just muchmore normalized there and the U?
S is still a little bit fartherbehind.
So I do find that the productsthat I am tasting that are from
Europe tend to be really goodand I think they've just had
(29:16):
more time and practice atdeveloping the category,
particularly on the wine side.
So I think that that ishappening and I know there's a
few interesting.
You know people who have a lotof experience in the technology.
So of course, ben Branson, whofounded Seedlip.
He has a new company that isdoing a lot of really cool
things with around technologyand trying to do different.
(29:38):
I don't know all the detailsbut do a lot of different
aspects around that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
The founder of Seedlip, working on technologies
and innovation to just get usto the next level within this
category.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, he has a couple of great brands one called
Silva he's working on andthey're spending a lot of time.
They have almost like a labthat they're working on that is
focused on just really coming upwith really great tasting.
I think the evolution of whatthe category should and could be
, and there's a few others Ican't the names are escaping me
that I know are working on, youknow, different deacetylization
(30:12):
techniques, working on differentways to, particularly on the
wine side I've read a lot aboutwinemakers that are really
experimenting with this, becausethere's a whole bunch of
different ways you candeacetylize wine and sort of
figuring out the best way to doit to keep that full-bodied
flavor again, that viscosity,that thing that people expect
(30:34):
right.
So I think there's kind of twoschools around the adult
non-alcoholic category.
If I were to subcategorize them, it is things that sort of
mimic or taste like thealcoholic products that we know
right, which is, how do you getsomething that tastes like a
non-alcoholic tequila or awhiskey or wine or a beer?
And then there's these productsthat aren't trying to tell
consumers we taste exactly likeyour favorite lager or your
favorite Cabernet.
We are going to be proxies andwe are going to be focused on
(30:57):
that adult occasion.
We're going to have coolflavors that maybe mimic a lot
of the flavors that you see inalcohol, but we're not going to
have that expectation rightGoing into it that we should
taste.
You should taste like somethingelse.
And I think that that that kindof adjacent or alternative adult
non-alcoholic category is veryinteresting because, again,
you're not setting up consumersfor disappointment that
(31:19):
something's going to tasteexactly like it's going to be,
because a lot of consumers don'trealize how hard it is to
de-alcoholize and and why theaging and barrels and all these
things make certain spiritstaste the way they're supposed
to.
Right, and trying to replicatethat's really hard.
So a lot of the I think proxyproducts that are out there and
the adjacent products are wherethere's going to be a lot of
growth, because they check allthe boxes.
(31:40):
They have the functionalbenefits but they don't
necessarily set people up forany disappointment around.
You shouldn't taste like this,right.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
What do you think?
The big players in the industry, like Diageo or Gallo I know
we're not going to talkspecifically about what someone
is doing, but what do you expectto see from them as a whole?
The big players in the adultnon-elk line of business?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yeah, I mean Diageo obviously has invested very
heavily in the space.
They own Seedlip very heavilyin the space.
They own Seedlip.
They have Venture Arm.
They have a couple of brandsthey just bought.
Ritual Constellation isinvested in adult non-alcoholic
brands.
All the beer companies havebrand line extensions around
adult non-alcoholic.
I would say you know a lot ofthem are making non-alcoholic
(32:26):
versions of brands like Tengereor Captain Morgan.
You know Bacardi's involved init.
So I think all of them aredoing different things depending
on how much they're investing.
So they're either makingnon-alcoholic versions of brands
that people already know tokeep people in the category
within the brand, and thenthere's a lot that are investing
in kind of new to world brandsor innovation brands that are
(32:48):
coming from really greatfounders, that are investing in
kind of new to world brands orinnovation brands that are
coming from really greatfounders that are out there.
I don't think you know rightnow with what's going on in the
in the industry.
Of course you know obviously alot of the major alcohol
producers are very focused ontheir core portfolios that drive
most of the revenue and makingsure that that is stabilized and
focused.
But I do believe a lot of themare paying attention to the
(33:08):
potential of the through again,brand line extensions or
investments in new brands.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
You make a really good point, because if you're a
giant alcoholic beverage companyor beer company, you do have to
get your big brands in orderand continue to nurture them and
spend most of your time on them.
And I think that if you look athistorically be it in soft
drinks or alcohol why innovationtends not to come out of the
biggest companies, it's becausetheir attention is elsewhere and
(33:37):
must be to maintain shareholdervalue.
But that's the exciting partfor innovators and you know.
I would just say that I hopethat funding comes into this
area because you do need to bewell-funded and given time.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I think you're right and, having worked for big
suppliers, brands in the past,it's very hard for a lot of them
to succeed at innovationbecause there's too much
pressure to do things faster.
Right, and I think the greatthing about being a founder and
having brands is you can failquickly and learn from it and
you can also make decisionswithout involving a million
(34:13):
people.
And most of the biggercompanies, I think, love to sort
of buy, not build necessarily,and that's just, you know, a
reality of being a largermultinational like that.
So I think that that's going tobe really more of the future of
the adult non-alcoholiccategory.
I think it's going to come fromnew brands.
If you look at athletic and if,as a parallel, if you look at
(34:34):
the hard seltzer category, whiteClaw, you know, came from Mark
Anthony private company, but nota big brewer, right, I mean
essentially you could say thehard seltzer category was
started by an independentcompany that kind of came up and
decided to disrupt and create awhole new space.
So I do think that the brandsof the future are going to be
(34:56):
these new brands that are notcoming from the big companies.
They're going to be coming fromfounders around the world that
are again experimenting, findingwhite space, finding gaps,
saying what do I want to drink?
That I don't see?
That's there and that's howmost of these great brands are
built.
Is people saying, as a consumer, I don't see what I want, so
I'll make it myself Exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
A need state Back to those need states.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, Consumers make the world go round right.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Oh, we do.
We absolutely do.
Brandy Rand, you've beenamazing.
I'd like to just ask you howpeople can reach you if they
want to and if there are anylast thoughts you want to leave
with the viewers and listenersof Drinks with Carolyn.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Well, sure you can reach me at brandy, at
thirstwellcom, my consultancybusiness.
My business is called ThirstWell, because I am very focused
in obviously all things drinksand also kind of this, you know,
evolving a better for you andadult non-alcoholic space, so
that's where you can find me.
Or I'm on LinkedIn, of course.
I always love to hear frompeople on LinkedIn, love working
with brands and companies,particularly around the adult
(36:00):
non-alcoholic space and trendsand consumer stuff.
So, yeah, I mean I think I guessto go back to where you started
with gosh, the alcohol industryright now it's been in a tough
place.
I love the fact that there arethese challenges, because
challenges create disruption anddisruption creates opportunity.
And I think this is a reallygood time, even though it's
(36:22):
certainly the way things we, theway we've done things before,
isn't necessarily the way we'regoing to do things in the future
.
And I think it's a reallyimportant time for brands and
businesses to kind of embracethe change and embrace the
things that are kind ofhappening.
And I think the landscape isgoing to look very different in
the next, you know, 10 years,which is exciting, well, as
always, we love to hear fromlisteners and viewers, so please
(36:44):
do comment and send us ideasand let's make this interactive.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Brandy, thank you so so much.
You always do the most amazingjob and we will speak again soon
.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
I hope, yes, in person, hopefully over a real
drink where we can actuallyreach out.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Again, I can only do that every so often.
Definitely.
Thank you.
Okay, Take care.
Bye-bye.
If you enjoyed this session,please do comment, rate and
follow us on Apple Podcasts,Spotify or wherever you listen,
and please share this with yourfriends and colleagues.
No matter what source you use, that younger
generations are drinking lessalcohol than previous
generations, and a lot of thatdoes have to do with the fact
that cannabis is more sociallyacceptable.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hello friends, old and new, and welcome to Drinks
with Caroline.
I'm so happy you've joined mefor what I believe will be
another stimulating conversationwith an industry expert,
founder or otherwise fabulousperson in the consumer industry.
I want to welcome the amazingBrandy Brand to Drinks with
(00:42):
Caroline.
It's a little earlier than onemight normally start drinks, but
hey, drinks range fromeverything from caffeinated to
alcohol to who knows what, andthere is no better expert on the
industry to tell us about thisthan Brandy Rand and Brandy.
I'm going to introduce you andask you to then tell us a little
bit about your background andyour experience across alcohol
(01:05):
in particular, but across theindustry in general.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Sure.
Well, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Always fun to chat with you.
So I have been in the beveragealcohol industry for over 20
years and I started off on thesupplier side.
So I worked with a companycalled Allied de Mec that got
bought by Pernod Ricard and thenI was at Bacardi for about six
years and I've done quite a fewroles on the supplier side, but
I'm known most recently for myrole at IWSR drinks market
(01:32):
analysis.
There I was the chief strategyofficer, spent over seven years
working with data and insightsand advising some of the you
know, top 20 global beveragecompanies in the world around
their strategy what people aredrinking, what category is going
to be hot next.
So that's been a bit of a focus.
I love data, I love insights, Ilove kind of predicting the
(01:54):
future.
So beverage industry is a funplace to be right now.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
It's always a fun place to be.
What I'm learning from being onvarious boards is that data is
ever more important.
It's so critical to being astrong marketer, so never mind
understanding what the trendsare and have been, but
understanding how effective yourmarketing is, so more and more.
(02:19):
I have just incredible respectfor anyone who knows how to look
at the data and analyze iteffectively, because you can get
lots of different conclusionsfrom the same data, and getting
it right is really important.
I've always found your work tobe so, so helpful.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, Thank you.
Well it's.
It's always there's a lot ofdata, probably almost too much
data right out there, but thekey point, as you say, is I
always would say that there'sdata and then there's analysis
and then there's insight.
Right, so data is a bunch ofnumbers.
Usually, spending the time toanalyze the data what does it
say, what does it mean and thenactually saying for an insight
well, how does this affect yourbusiness, how does this affect
(02:52):
your brands?
It becomes a really importantkey factor, and so I think those
of us that get in data overload, the most important thing is
say what is the data telling usand how do we look at multiple
data sources and kind of put itall together to tell a story.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And you're amazing at that.
So let's talk about the factthat the industry has been in
turmoil.
I think would be a fairanalysis because biggest beer
brands under a lot of pressure,biggest spirits brands under a
lot of pressure I think volumehas actually been negative
across much of alcohol for along time.
Wine is struggling.
Can you give us yourperspective, especially if you
(03:26):
go back a decade, look at wherewe are today, post COVID, and
maybe help us as an audienceunderstand what could be on the
horizon in the next severalyears?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Listen, everything goes through sort of
generational shifts.
And if you look back evenfarther than 10 years, back in
the days of kind of the Mad Menand the liquid lunches and stuff
, bourbon was the number one,you know, selling spirit right,
or whiskey was, and then the 70scame along and then vodka
became more popular and then wehad some sort of shifts.
I mean, everything is a bitgenerational in terms of shifts
(03:59):
and preferences.
And you see this even globally,right In markets like Italy and
France, where your parentsdrank a lot of wine and the
younger generation is moreinterested in beer and cocktails
.
So I think, if we look at itfrom that, same with
Birkenstocks and mom jeans andall this type of stuff, right.
So if we look at the I think atthe alcohol industry in that
(04:31):
perspective, there are somelittle slight shifts that happen
and they're based ongenerational preferences.
Overall, specifically with thespirits industry, if you look
back over the last 20 years,we've been in this golden era of
cocktails right.
So everybody has beenrediscovering gin and cognac and
whiskey and drinking oldfashions and Negronis.
And we've had this generationfor the past 20 years where
(04:54):
getting a really great classiccocktail or going to a good bar
and having a good bar program isvery normal.
But it wasn't.
If you remember, caroline,probably 15, 20 years ago you
couldn't go to a dive bar andask for a Negroni, and I think
now you probably can.
So there are some big shiftsaround.
I think, just generationalchanges like that.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, cocktails are fun.
In fact, I was just thinkingit's pretty it's so early
because I'm starting to getexcited about the idea of having
one.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
You could have a non-alcoholic cocktail.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
You could yes we're going to get into that in some
detail.
So these generational shiftsare really interesting.
Can you weigh in a little biton how much you think the
legalization, or almostlegalization, of marijuana and
CBD and so on might have been afactor in the slowdown in
alcohol?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
consumption.
You know that's always a bigdebate, depending on who you ask
, whether you think thatcannabis has an effect or
doesn't have an effect.
And I think there's been plentyof studies where you look at
states like Colorado orWashington State, where you've
had legalization of cannabis,recreational legalization, and
then you look beverage alcoholconsumption and you don't really
see that big of a change and alot of it is just because people
(06:04):
were buying cannabis when itwasn't legal before and that
doesn't really change the factor, right, we just try to track it
better.
I do think that youngergenerations and this is sort of
well documented across many,many studies, no matter what
source you use that youngergenerations are drinking less
alcohol than previousgenerations and a lot of that
(06:26):
does have to do with the factthat cannabis is more socially
acceptable.
Right, it's become morenormalized.
It's much, it's much morenormal for for people you know
now you see people doing gummiesand having cannabis and all
that it's much more kind ofnormal.
It doesn't have the same socialstigma where, if you were to ask
maybe a boomer or my generation, which is a Gen X generation,
(06:47):
you know we didn't grow up withthat being legal and so it's one
of those things where you kindof how you grow up, the factors
around you socially shape howyour future habits are of
consumption.
I think this is a reallyimportant factor when you look
at Gen Z, which we talk a lotabout important factor.
When you look at Gen Z, whichwe talk a lot about, they have
(07:07):
grown up under a different setof social, political, health.
A lot of things have happenedin their young life that will
shape their future decisionsaround health, around wellness
and how they choose to livetheir lives.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It's so true, I mean.
One of my favorite observationswas being at my niece's wedding
.
She's 30.
And a couple of hours into thewedding, when the venue was
going to move somewhere else,they made an announcement saying
could you please order somealcoholic drinks, Because we
haven't made our minimum.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's crazy.
I mean, I can't even imaginelike my wedding we ran out In
our generation.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
that was the norm.
You went way over the limit ofyour minimum, of your minimum.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
This is a big thing that I personally believe in
Some people who say, well, whenthose Gen Zers get a house and
they have kids and they get amortgage and they're working and
all that, they'll startdrinking wine just like the rest
of us.
Right, that there is somethingto be said for.
You know, as you age maybe youget more income, you start to
buy nicer wine, nicer spirits,and I think that ultimately you
(08:08):
know again generationally, howthis generation has grown up
fully in social media, been onphones since they were very
young.
They have grown up again withthe socialization of cannabis
and they're also their parentswere the big cocktail folks,
right, so they're kind of likeall right, what's new and what's
interesting for me?
And I think when we look at theinnovation happening in the
(08:28):
general beverage space, acrossnot only you know CBD beverages,
across ready to drink beverages, across nootropics and
adaptogens and just really coolclean energy drinks and like
there's just so much happeningin beverage that there is also
more choice for this generationto drink different things that
(08:48):
fulfill different needs for them.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, and it's very exciting.
The packaging is exciting andthe, you know, often you'll have
a celebrity behind it.
So there's amazing innovationfor sure in beverages and it's
crossing segments.
So I loved your description ofvarious need states that the
consumer has, includingcaffeination, and you know I
(09:11):
think you have three of themthat you highlight.
So could you talk a little bitabout that, because I do think
that everything starts with theconsumer.
So you know, you can have agreat brand, but if the consumer
is not ready for it or doesn'tunderstand it, or just the
timing's wrong, it can be a biguphill battle.
But talk about the consumerneed state.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I did something at BevNet actually called drinking
our feelings, and I can't takecredit for coming up with that,
the idea.
I've sort of expounded on it.
But I um years ago there was aGen Zer on on TikTok who was
talking about beverages and shesaid beverages for her were such
a an aesthetic.
And there's this whole idea ofdrinking multiple beverages at
(09:51):
once and she's like I like tocaffeinate, hydrate and
alleviate.
So the idea of caffeinate,hydrate and alleviate is so
simple and just for me hit sucha bullseye on, I think, how
consumers, particularly thisgeneration, is looking at
drinking and consuming beverages.
And then there was this wholething that spawned on TikTok,
(10:12):
where everybody started postingpictures of their diet Coke or
their Celsius for theircaffeination, and then there was
their bottle of electrolytewater or collagen water for
hydration or coconut water, andthen they had their alleviate,
and their alleviate could havebeen an alcoholic beverage like
sparkling wine or beer or acocktail or a CBD beverage.
And so for me, when I thinkabout that, it's like consumers
(10:35):
are looking at mood states.
They're looking at how theyfeel and choosing how they drink
based on how they want to feel.
Do I want to calm down?
Do I want to energize?
Like, what kind of mood stateam I in?
And this has become even moretrue.
Like when, when I look at theamount of innovative beverages,
there's so many of them thatdon't categorize themselves as a
(10:57):
tea or a coffee or a water oran energy drink or a beer.
There's a lot of these brandscoming out that the names are
like calm and happy and you know, you don't even know what's in
the can, because a lot of theseare canned beverages where it's
just a really cool packaging,like you said, some really great
fun flavor and then someemotive state.
(11:18):
That's what people are sort ofchoosing.
And so I always look at thatand say, wow, us in the industry
, particularly on the data side,we love to categorize stuff.
Right.
It's how we collect data, howwe look at trends.
We love to put things incategories and I think there are
so many beverages that arecoming out now that defy
categorization or are more crosscategorization, and I think
(11:40):
that consumers are actuallycategory agnostic.
I don't think that a lot ofpeople necessarily think I want
a particular category.
I think they think that a lotof people necessarily think I
want a particular category.
I think they look at a bunch ofthese things and they're
picking flavor or they'repicking function Again.
Caffeinate hydrate alleviateLike what am I?
What do I?
How do I want to feel?
I think that's driving beverage.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
If the person who posted that on social media
hears this, please let me knowwho you are and I'll give you
credit.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Her name's Sophia Peloton.
Yeah, she's the one who sort ofstarted that and I think you
know I love looking at thingsthat are happening outside of
our industry to give perspectiveto what's happening in the
industry, because so often whenyou're in the beverage space
you're just very focused on kindof what's going on and trying
to understand the trends withineach category or between
companies and between brands,but ultimately, to your point,
(12:27):
it's what is happening in theworld.
Generally speaking, that isaffecting how consumers are
choosing brands and how they arechoosing beverages, and a lot
of it has to do with larger, Ithink, societal factors.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I absolutely agree with you.
And just to your point of moodstates, I had the privilege of
working with Happy Dad Salsa andthe idea is, you know, just
because you've become a parentdoesn't mean you can't really
enjoy an alcoholic beverage.
Maybe you want a little lesssugar, a little healthier, and
Happy Dad Salsa has been one ofthe fastest growing ready to
(13:03):
drink beverages, even though thesalsa category is weak.
So I think it really speaks tofinding that mood state or that
moment with the consumer.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I mean that's a lifestyle too.
I mean I think there's a lot ofgreat brands like Athletic
right, which you know fantasticnon-alcoholic beer that you know
, you know very well, it's alifestyle brand, right, and I've
heard Bill say he didn't go outto say, hey, we're pushing like
non-alcoholic beer.
As much as this is a lifestyleof people who care about their
health and who are fitnessenthusiasts.
And I think there's a lot ofbrands that, if you look at the
(13:33):
brand they are whether it iscelebrity or an influencer or
just a particular lifestyle,whether you know it's your dad
and you know you're a happy dadit's about a lifestyle and
connecting with people in waysthat is a motive that they can
really identify with, becausethat's how they're prioritizing,
how they want to live Well.
One of the cool things was.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I gave some of my happy dad's salsa to my dog
trainer and his face went intoshock and he goes how did you
know?
I'm like know what?
And he said we're pregnant,we're going to have a baby.
I said I didn't know, but itwas such delight for him to have
this brand, it was so cute.
I think that these big societaltrends are so important to
(14:15):
consumer space in general, andone of them is that the consumer
is finally aware that the oldfood pyramid doesn't work.
There's GLP-1 coming onto themarket which can affect how much
people eat and drink and whatthey eat and drink, and then
there's also that we're going alittle backwards in terms of
socializing, a little bit ofnesting and hibernating.
(14:35):
So what roles do you seebeverages playing in helping
people get out to enjoy life ormeeting them where they are?
You've talked a lot about theneed states, but also the
blurring of lines.
It would just be interesting tohear your perspective on how
you see that playing out.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting point around the
fact that we socialize less.
I think it's something that alot of folks, particularly in
the alcohol industry, arerecognizing, because it's always
been let's go have a drinkafter work, let's go meet for
drinks, let's, you know, have abeer, right.
And that whole idea of alcoholbeing central to socialization,
I think has shifted quite a bit.
(15:13):
Certainly, with COVID, peoplebecame more at home and started
doing more things at home and Ithink also the rise of
technology right, people areFaceTiming and doing Teams,
chats and doing video games anddoing all of this stuff where
there's this idea that we areconnecting, but we are not
connecting in person, we areconnecting through a device, and
(15:33):
so it's a very interesting, Ithink, dichotomy and a lot of
like psychologists andsociologists are looking at this
younger generation and the factthat they're very lonely and
that they don't know how tosocialize and they don't know
how to meet people face-to-face.
So that is a bit of, I think, acrisis, certainly in terms of
how we get to interact more, andI think beverages always have
(15:54):
this role.
It's a dual role.
First of all, people love beingable to choose what they want,
and I think that there's thisidea of beverages as social
signaling.
So it started with cocktails.
Like what you're holding inyour hand when you're at a bar
you order, what brand you call,says a lot about who you are,
just like with clothing andbrands of shoes and all these
things.
So I think beverages havecertainly evolved in the last 15
(16:17):
or 20 years to be what brandthat you hold in your hand or
that you buy or that you post onsocial media says a lot about
who you are.
So beverages have elevated to,I think, becoming like a handbag
or a pair of Nikes, right, andthat's a big change in the
industry.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
You know what's interesting?
You go to New York and spend$25 on a cocktail and you think
that's insane.
That's going to be gone in 30minutes, but compared to buying
a Hermes handbag, it's a steal.
So you've got your badge,albeit temporary, but it is
affordable.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's something you can have if you're like, yeah, I
can't afford, you know, thattrip to Europe, but I might as
well have my Aperol Spritz andfeel like I'm there.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I do think that that's a big piece of that,
which is what I drink and howI'm drinking and how I'm showing
people what I'm drinking onsocial media is a reflection of
of who I am and how I'm feeling.
That piece of it and then thesecond piece, so there's an
individuality around it that Ithink is really great.
The second piece then becomesaround well then, how do I do
that with other other people?
And I do.
(17:28):
I think that that that's a bigchallenge right now.
Is is is making sure you'rebringing people back to bars and
restaurants, that people aresocializing more, but also the
inclusivity.
So the movement in the adultnon-alcoholic space has been
very much around inclusivity,meaning there are people that
like to go out, but it's alwaysbeen let's go out for a drink or
let's go to a bar, and ifyou're at a really fancy
(17:48):
cocktail bar or a sports barwatching a game and all your
friends are drinking, you canfeel really left out.
And so I think what's going tobe really great for helping
socialization in person is thefact that the adult
non-alcoholic category is givingpeople options to go out in
those settings but havesomething to drink that looks
like and tastes like analcoholic or an adult beverage,
(18:09):
so that they don't feel likethey're ordering a water or
having to explain themselves asto why they're not drinking.
So that's why, as you know,I've been spending a lot of time
on the adult non-alcohol space,because I believe it's sort of
the future of inclusivity andthe future of how we're going to
drink.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I love that.
So tell me more about where youthink the consumer is going to
spend their dollars in the adult, non-alcoholic the ANA world.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I'm pushing the ANA thing out here.
The reason why is because if wesay non-alcoholic of course I
mean people who sell coffee andtea and soda and stuff are like,
well, we're non-alcoholic,right, but in the alcohol world
we like to call anything that'snot doesn't have an alcohol kind
of non-alcoholic.
But it obviously has a dualmeaning.
So adult non-alcoholic meansthese are products that again
(18:59):
are targeting the kind of adultsin an alcohol occasion.
So they are things that tasteand look like beer, wine,
spirits or cocktails, but youalso have alcohol kind of
adjacent and these are productsthat, like a Gia, for example,
that doesn't call itself a beeror a wine or a spirit but it is
a ready to drink, it has a funkind of alcohol flavors, like a
spritz flavor, but hasadaptogens and things like that.
And I think this space, I meanit's growing.
(19:20):
It's one of the only categoriesright now across beverage
alcohol and I would say even intraditional beverages, you get
these double digit growth.
You know, 20, 30, 40% in adultnon-alcoholic over the past year
on a small volume base.
But what this shows you is thatthere's a lot of enthusiasm and
momentum around the category.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yes, for sure, and I have tried many.
I'm, you know, a fan of Kin anda number of others.
I do have to say overall I findthat some taste way too much
like an ordinary soft drink, butthey cost more.
So I think the challenge that Isee for brands is how to make
it taste as if it has thattexture or specialness of having
(20:02):
alcohol in it and maybe be surethat the bartender is creating
that magic with it.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
There's a lot of technology.
Dealcoholization is a verycomplicated thing, so
dealcoholizing.
So there's different ways youcan create products that are
non-alcoholic.
There is taking an alcoholicproduct and dealcoholizing it
and there's a lot of othertechnology around that.
So for wine and beer and forspirits, right, you have to go
through a process, it'sexpensive, it's complicated and,
(20:33):
yeah, it can be challenging, Ithink, particularly for some of
these categories, to get thesame.
You know, when you're aging awine for 15 years or aging a
bourbon for five, six years, youknow it's hard to replicate
that type of thing.
But I do know the technology isgetting better around the
viscosity, the burn, that thingthat you get from alcohol.
That gives you the weight.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Oh, let's just repeat that viscosity and burn,
because I didn't know what I wasmissing, but that must've been
it.
I don't know if there are otherthings.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
For spirits.
Yeah, I think for spirits beeris the biggest adult
non-alcoholic category,non-alcoholic beer, because it's
been around the longest, um,it's the one that tastes the
closest to real beer, if youknow, and and that has been,
it's again de-alcoholization ishard but it tastes the closest.
Wine has been, um, gettingbetter.
There are more and more brandscoming out, but again, a lot of
(21:19):
wines I think particularly thesparkling wines and the white
wines are much closer becausethey tend to be aged less.
It's when you get to those, theweightiness of the red wines,
the things you get from agingand sitting in oak, that can be
hard to sort of replicate.
And I think for spirits it'sthe burn piece, right, so you're
talking about 40%.
You know alcohol, that's a lotand that burn is something that
(21:41):
I think a lot of the spirit,non-alcoholic, spirit brands are
kind of working towards.
And you know, you're right, howdoes the bartender mix that
type of thing right To make itso it's not just like a bunch of
juice RTDs that you mentioned,which stands?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
for ready to drink.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yes, so you don't have to go through
de-alcoholization for those.
Most of those ready to drinkbrands are sort of creating a
flavor profile.
Most of them are carbonated, soit doesn't surprise me that you
would think, hey, these are veryclose to maybe like a soft
drink or something else that Ihave had before, because the
flavor profiles and the way thatit's produced could be the same
(22:15):
.
However, I think a lot of theadult non-alcoholic RTDs, they
tend to have more of thosecocktail flavors.
They tend to be a little bitstronger, more bitter.
Also, a lot of them have thefunctional types of benefits.
So I do see that a lot of themwhen I personally will pour them
into like a glass with ice, Iput a garnish, like I treat it
(22:36):
like a cocktail right, becausethey are ready to drink
non-alcoholic cocktails.
So yeah, I mean I think there'sa lot of really great brands
out there that are kind ofscratching the itch, if you will
, for people who are like I kindof want that thing that tastes
like cocktail and feels specialand feels premium, so that I'm
out and drinking that withsomebody else and I think we're
getting there.
(22:57):
I mean, I think there's a lotof really great brands and
there's so much great innovationgoing on in this space.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Do you want to call out any of the brands that you
think our listeners and viewersshould try?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, I get this question a lot.
I mean, you and I had, I think,when we were having dinner in
LA not too long ago.
We had Naan, which was a reallygreat wine proxy.
So there's a lot of wineproxies that are great out there
.
One called Proxies actuallyNaan is great.
I find that those brands do somereally interesting things with
flavors, but they're not callingthemselves a Cabernet Sauvignon
or they're not callingthemselves Pinot Grigio.
(23:29):
They are in a wine bottle andthey kind of have the flavor
profiles and they feel like wineand I think that's those brands
are really, really interesting.
On the RTD side, I love Dessoir, I love Kin, I love Parch, I
love Santa Cresta's Fonina Grani.
I think they do a great job.
There's so many good brands outthere Any spirits brands you
(23:50):
want to call out.
You know, on the spirit side, Ihave had probably a little bit
of a harder time because, likeyou said, it depends so much on
what you mix it with ultimatelyBecause, remember, most spirits
are meant to be a base and thenyou modify and you add stuff to
it.
So I've always had sort of haddifferent brands that taste a
little bit different dependingon how I mix it.
(24:12):
So that's been, I feel, like alittle bit more challenging.
But I know again there is somebetter technology coming out
around some of those.
But yeah, I think that that'sreally dependent on who's making
the drink to really make thosestand out.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, I recently had Bill Shufelt, the founder of
Athletic Brewing, on, and what Ithink Athletic has done is
really raised the bar on thequality and flavor and richness,
and it's just a delight todrink any of those flavors.
I am on the board so I'mpotentially biased, but I truly
do enjoy their drinks so much,and so I feel that, with the
(24:49):
wine and spirits category, themore innovation we see and as
you talk about the technologyand Athletic has spent a fortune
marketing its product, heinekenZero.
Zero has spent money, and Ithink there will be more money
going into non-alcohol beer Ithink that the real opportunity
rests both in product evolution,but also in giving the consumer
(25:12):
a reason to try them, havingthem available on premise so
that you can have a try whereyou're not buying a pack, you're
just buying one, and remindingus that it's important to go out
and be social, and the localpub or restaurant is a great
place to have interactions,which I think we're sadly
missing as a society more thanever, especially with gaming and
(25:35):
online gambling rising.
So I'm hoping that we start tosee much more marketing going
into this category as well.
This adult non-alcohol category.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, you're right.
I mean the marketing is.
Why, again, beer is a biggercategory is because there's
bigger players and more peopleare investing behind the beer
category.
A lot of the adultnon-alcoholic brands that
they're all still pretty smallcomparative to bigger brands and
it costs money to do marketingand a lot of them, because they
are non-alcoholic, do the directto consumer route and they
spend a lot of their money on,you know, instagram and social
(26:09):
media, where they're trying tocapture consumers, because it's
a more cost effective way to doit.
It costs a lot of money to runads you know traditional prints
and TV ads but I do thinkconsumer awareness of the
category is getting higher.
One stat that I always findreally interesting and if you're
any kind of a brand marketer,you know how hard it is to get
new consumers into a brand or acategory right.
(26:31):
It's usually very, verydifficult and the adult
non-alcoholic category is ableto recruit kind of new drinkers,
people who have never been inthe category before every year,
which means that the addressablemarket, meaning the number of
people that still arediscovering the category, is
still really small, which meansthat there's a big opportunity
there.
And what I find is reallyinteresting is that a lot of the
(26:54):
people that are coming into thecategory are coming from soft
drinks and water and energydrinks as well as alcohol.
So I think in the alcoholindustry we always look at like
what's the share ofnon-alcoholic beer going to be
of the beer category?
But really we should be askingwhat is the share of
non-alcoholic beer going to bein the beverage category?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I love that, the blurring of the lines.
I mean the consumer's notthinking, oh, I'm going to drink
an alcoholic beverage or youknow, and it's going to be beer.
They're thinking about what doI feel like?
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, and I think and there's a lot of really
interesting stats whereparticularly the younger
generation that usually ifthey're saying they're not
drinking, so like I'm notdrinking tonight I have to study
or I'm working out in themorning or I doesn't feel like
drinking and they usually woulddrink energy drink or water or
soft drink they're trading upright to a adult non-alcoholic
(27:44):
beverage because it'ssophisticated, more flavor is
more interesting for them.
Then you see a lot of people whoare traditional drinkers, a
little bit of the oldergeneration that has been the big
drinkers of a driving thealcohol category the last 20
years.
That is deciding maybe I don'twant to have a drink.
Then they're actually goingfrom the alcohol category into
adult non-alcohol, so it'spulling from kind of both.
(28:05):
And so I view the adultnon-alcohol category categories
in kind of the middle oftraditional beverages,
traditional non-alcoholicbeverages and alcoholic
beverages, and so theaddressable market becomes much
bigger and the opportunity againfor people entering the space,
whether they drank alcoholbefore or not, is much, much
bigger, which is why I think thecategory is really going to
grow exponentially over the nextfive, 10 years.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, I think so.
When you talk about newtechnologies, are there any
specifics, that any areas inparticular that you think we're
going to see?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
improvement in.
Like anyone, I've read a lotabout this stuff and I'm
anxiously looking to try a lotof these new brands I've heard.
I mean there's very interestingthings happening, you know, in
Europe.
You know Europe is kind of moreof the home of adult
non-alcoholic it's.
If you go to Europe you seezero proof or non-alcoholic
options on all the cocktailmenus and distributions there.
(28:54):
I mean, in markets like Germany, for example, non-alcoholic
beer is already like almost youknow five, six, seven, 8% share
of beer right.
The categories are just muchmore normalized there and the U?
S is still a little bit fartherbehind.
So I do find that the productsthat I am tasting that are from
Europe tend to be really goodand I think they've just had
(29:16):
more time and practice atdeveloping the category,
particularly on the wine side.
So I think that that ishappening and I know there's a
few interesting.
You know people who have a lotof experience in the technology.
So of course, ben Branson, whofounded Seedlip.
He has a new company that isdoing a lot of really cool
things with around technologyand trying to do different.
(29:38):
I don't know all the detailsbut do a lot of different
aspects around that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
The founder of Seedlip, working on technologies
and innovation to just get usto the next level within this
category.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, he has a couple of great brands one called
Silva he's working on andthey're spending a lot of time.
They have almost like a labthat they're working on that is
focused on just really coming upwith really great tasting.
I think the evolution of whatthe category should and could be
, and there's a few others Ican't the names are escaping me
that I know are working on, youknow, different deacetylization
(30:12):
techniques, working on differentways to, particularly on the
wine side I've read a lot aboutwinemakers that are really
experimenting with this, becausethere's a whole bunch of
different ways you candeacetylize wine and sort of
figuring out the best way to doit to keep that full-bodied
flavor again, that viscosity,that thing that people expect
(30:34):
right.
So I think there's kind of twoschools around the adult
non-alcoholic category.
If I were to subcategorize them, it is things that sort of
mimic or taste like thealcoholic products that we know
right, which is, how do you getsomething that tastes like a
non-alcoholic tequila or awhiskey or wine or a beer?
And then there's these productsthat aren't trying to tell
consumers we taste exactly likeyour favorite lager or your
favorite Cabernet.
We are going to be proxies andwe are going to be focused on
(30:57):
that adult occasion.
We're going to have coolflavors that maybe mimic a lot
of the flavors that you see inalcohol, but we're not going to
have that expectation rightGoing into it that we should
taste.
You should taste like somethingelse.
And I think that that that kindof adjacent or alternative adult
non-alcoholic category is veryinteresting because, again,
you're not setting up consumersfor disappointment that
(31:19):
something's going to tasteexactly like it's going to be,
because a lot of consumers don'trealize how hard it is to
de-alcoholize and and why theaging and barrels and all these
things make certain spiritstaste the way they're supposed
to.
Right, and trying to replicatethat's really hard.
So a lot of the I think proxyproducts that are out there and
the adjacent products are wherethere's going to be a lot of
growth, because they check allthe boxes.
(31:40):
They have the functionalbenefits but they don't
necessarily set people up forany disappointment around.
You shouldn't taste like this,right.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
What do you think?
The big players in the industry, like Diageo or Gallo I know
we're not going to talkspecifically about what someone
is doing, but what do you expectto see from them as a whole?
The big players in the adultnon-elk line of business?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yeah, I mean Diageo obviously has invested very
heavily in the space.
They own Seedlip very heavilyin the space.
They own Seedlip.
They have Venture Arm.
They have a couple of brandsthey just bought.
Ritual Constellation isinvested in adult non-alcoholic
brands.
All the beer companies havebrand line extensions around
adult non-alcoholic.
I would say you know a lot ofthem are making non-alcoholic
(32:26):
versions of brands like Tengereor Captain Morgan.
You know Bacardi's involved init.
So I think all of them aredoing different things depending
on how much they're investing.
So they're either makingnon-alcoholic versions of brands
that people already know tokeep people in the category
within the brand, and thenthere's a lot that are investing
in kind of new to world brandsor innovation brands that are
(32:48):
coming from really greatfounders, that are investing in
kind of new to world brands orinnovation brands that are
coming from really greatfounders that are out there.
I don't think you know rightnow with what's going on in the
in the industry.
Of course you know obviously alot of the major alcohol
producers are very focused ontheir core portfolios that drive
most of the revenue and makingsure that that is stabilized and
focused.
But I do believe a lot of themare paying attention to the
(33:08):
potential of the through again,brand line extensions or
investments in new brands.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
You make a really good point, because if you're a
giant alcoholic beverage companyor beer company, you do have to
get your big brands in orderand continue to nurture them and
spend most of your time on them.
And I think that if you look athistorically be it in soft
drinks or alcohol why innovationtends not to come out of the
biggest companies, it's becausetheir attention is elsewhere and
(33:37):
must be to maintain shareholdervalue.
But that's the exciting partfor innovators and you know.
I would just say that I hopethat funding comes into this
area because you do need to bewell-funded and given time.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I think you're right and, having worked for big
suppliers, brands in the past,it's very hard for a lot of them
to succeed at innovationbecause there's too much
pressure to do things faster.
Right, and I think the greatthing about being a founder and
having brands is you can failquickly and learn from it and
you can also make decisionswithout involving a million
(34:13):
people.
And most of the biggercompanies, I think, love to sort
of buy, not build necessarily,and that's just, you know, a
reality of being a largermultinational like that.
So I think that that's going tobe really more of the future of
the adult non-alcoholiccategory.
I think it's going to come fromnew brands.
If you look at athletic and if,as a parallel, if you look at
(34:34):
the hard seltzer category, whiteClaw, you know, came from Mark
Anthony private company, but nota big brewer, right, I mean
essentially you could say thehard seltzer category was
started by an independentcompany that kind of came up and
decided to disrupt and create awhole new space.
So I do think that the brandsof the future are going to be
(34:56):
these new brands that are notcoming from the big companies.
They're going to be coming fromfounders around the world that
are again experimenting, findingwhite space, finding gaps,
saying what do I want to drink?
That I don't see?
That's there and that's howmost of these great brands are
built.
Is people saying, as a consumer, I don't see what I want, so
I'll make it myself Exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
A need state Back to those need states.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, Consumers make the world go round right.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Oh, we do.
We absolutely do.
Brandy Rand, you've beenamazing.
I'd like to just ask you howpeople can reach you if they
want to and if there are anylast thoughts you want to leave
with the viewers and listenersof Drinks with Carolyn.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Well, sure you can reach me at brandy, at
thirstwellcom, my consultancybusiness.
My business is called ThirstWell, because I am very focused
in obviously all things drinksand also kind of this, you know,
evolving a better for you andadult non-alcoholic space, so
that's where you can find me.
Or I'm on LinkedIn, of course.
I always love to hear frompeople on LinkedIn, love working
with brands and companies,particularly around the adult
(36:00):
non-alcoholic space and trendsand consumer stuff.
So, yeah, I mean I think I guessto go back to where you started
with gosh, the alcohol industryright now it's been in a tough
place.
I love the fact that there arethese challenges, because
challenges create disruption anddisruption creates opportunity.
And I think this is a reallygood time, even though it's
(36:22):
certainly the way things we, theway we've done things before,
isn't necessarily the way we'regoing to do things in the future
.
And I think it's a reallyimportant time for brands and
businesses to kind of embracethe change and embrace the
things that are kind ofhappening.
And I think the landscape isgoing to look very different in
the next, you know, 10 years,which is exciting, well, as
always, we love to hear fromlisteners and viewers, so please
(36:44):
do comment and send us ideasand let's make this interactive.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Brandy, thank you so so much.
You always do the most amazingjob and we will speak again soon
.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
I hope, yes, in person, hopefully over a real
drink where we can actuallyreach out.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Again, I can only do that every so often.
Definitely.
Thank you.
Okay, Take care.
Bye-bye.
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