All-day venues drive growth in premium drinks

The rise in café-style all-day opening venues is fuelling the growth of premium drinks brands, a leading analyst has claimed.

Alison Powell, an account manger at research firm CGA, said more than 50 per cent of new venue openings now fall into the café-style bracket, while high-street style bars aimed at young people were disappearing.

These type of new outlets - also known as chameleon venues - serve coffee in the morning, stay open during the day, then turn into a late-night destination.

Speaking at the Wine and Spirit Trade Association's annual conference today, Powell said: "These venues are very much leaning towards a high-end market and it's the natural territory for premium spirits," she said. "It's certainly an area to watch."

She earlier highlighted that premium brands now accounted for 20 per cent of on-trade value in spirits - and dark rum was seeing particular growth.

Another factor driving a rise in premium brands is the continuing phenomenon of drinkers known as "weekend millionaires", Powell said.

Due to the recession, some consumers are restricting themselves to only one night out a week, then opting for premium brands.

Earlier, Stewart Blunt of Nielsen Research, noted that in the off-trade drinks such as sambuca and Jagermeister were selling well, due to pre-loading young people.

"The younger set are still tanking up or front-loading before they go out into the on-trade," he said. He later argued the "traditional spirits market is simply going nowhere".

Powell had earlier pointed to research showing that 20 per cent of 18-35 year-olds have at least three drinks before going out for a night.

Pricing in the off-trade was also an issue that attracted comment from speakers during the conference.

Richard Halstead, chief operating officer of Wine Intelligence, urged companies to "move beyond price as a reason" for people buy their products.

And Jonathan Stordy, managing director Europe of Beam Global Spirits & Wine, suggested that companies in the UK should stop competing on price. "Some of the prices we see in the off-trade on whisky is just difficult to comprehend," he said.

Earlier James Brokenshire, the minister responsible for the coalition's licensing overhaul, updated delegates on the progress being made with the changes.

He reiterated the councils must be "proportionate and reasonable" with any new powers they are given.

And he acknowledged individuals had a part to play through personal responsibility, even there was no mention of this in the licensing consultation document.