Drinks sales fall behind 2022 levels for the first time

This marked the first week that sales have fallen below 2022 levels, following growth of 25%, 2% and 7% over the previous three weeks.

Additionally, with inflation currently in double digits, last week’s sales were even further behind in real terms, according to CGA.

Challenging start 

CGA managing director UK and Ireland Johnathan Jones said: “After decent year-on-year growth for drinks sales in January and February, it has been a challenging start to spring.”

Year-on-year drops peaked with declines of 6% and 9% on Wednesday and Thursday (8 and 9 March) respectively.

However, sales brightened on Friday (10 March), rising by 2%, before falling back down on Saturday, in part due to the absence of a Six Nations game for England that day, with previous matches having boosted sales by some 25%.​

Attributing the downturn to the cost-of-living crisis and poor weather, CGA stated drinks-led operators had seen harder trading conditions during the first half of March.

Pressure on disposable income 

Category-wise, sales of beer, cider and wine were all up by between 1% and 3% last week, while soft drinks and spirits were down 4% and 13% respectively.

However, the Long Alcoholic Drinks (LAD) categories regained some of the share previously lost to spirits.

This comes as the previous tracker​, released last month, showed sales were 12% up compared with the same period last year during the seven days to Saturday 11 February.

Jones added: “Pressure on disposable income combined with a cold, wet start to the month has taken a toll and the market will be hoping for better weather in the coming weeks to encourage people out to pubs and bars and loosen their spending.”