September saw the first day-long conference dedicated to low and no alcohol. The aim, says organiser and Club Soda founder Laura Willoughby, is to unite the industry and use the findings to create a white paper to guide the category into the future. Lucy Britner reports
“There’s a really exciting future if we don’t fuck it up,” Seedlip founder Ben Branson tells a packed room at the opening of the first Club Soda Low, Light & Alcohol-Free Summit.
Branson, who launched alcohol-free spirit Seedlip 10 years ago, tells the audience it’s on the category pioneers to ensure bad experiences with low and no-alcohol products don’t put people off.
“There’s a lot of great quality,” he says, “but also a lot of crap.”
“I would love us, over the next 10 years, to ultimately take more ownership of our own category,” he urges. “It’s not about breaking away from alcohol, it’s about not being ‘less than’ and not being positioned slightly beneath [alcohol], and that’s across everything from liquids to pricing.
“The reason why events like this are so important is that this is about taking responsibility for our category,” he says, rather than being the “poor little child that was this offshoot of alcohol”.
For the category to “grow up”, as Branson puts it, there are several topics that need to be taken into consideration. And in a packed and varied schedule, key themes from the day include the pitfalls of innovation moving faster than legislation, a changing government, and how the category will evolve and ‘normalise’.
In July, the UK saw an end to 14 years of Conservative government, and while this was a welcome relief for many, it has slowed things down for the low and no category, as consultations get moved down the agenda.
Rob Fink, founder of alcohol-free Big Drop Brewing Co, chaired a panel on what we can expect from Labour. The former lawyer explains that the industry is widely calling for clarity over ‘alcohol-free’ and 0.5% abv.
“If you’re producing a beverage which is 0.5% abv, it used to be the case under the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 that it was unlawful to label that as alcohol free,” starts Fink. “If you wanted to label something as alcohol free, it needed to be 0.05 abv.”
When those regulations expired in December 2018, they were replaced by guidelines – not rules. And the previous government sought consultation from the industry. However, we now have a different set of leaders.
Matt Lambert, CEO of industry watchdog the Portman Group was also on the panel, and he describes the current state of permitted labelling and terminology as “cloudy”.
“This is a problem – where does alcohol-free start? What terms can you use? De-alcoholised? No alcohol, non-alcoholic?
“We have been pressing the government to get on with this. Obviously now we have a new government and they’re saying they’ve got all this mess to clear up – the NHS, prisons and so forth. So, this has been deprioritised. And on top of that, the people who deal with this have changed guard – there’s a completely new team who don’t seem particularly interested in alcohol alternatives. That’s a concern.”
Lambert calls on producers to contact their local MPs to ask for clarity on the subject.
Karen Tyrell, CEO of Drinkaware, says she has seen three trends from Labour: “One is they are genuinely interested in prevention, early intervention.
“Secondly, they made quite a lot of noise about genuinely wanting to work with industry. We’ve yet to see how that might unfold in our space, but I think it’s promising that they aren’t going to knee-jerk into something and I’d like to hope that there will be a decent level of consultation for any change.
“And thirdly the Labour party has been really clear that they want to work with wider civil society and with charities and organisations like Drinkaware.”
Kelly Moss, head of compliance at the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), speaks about a different consultation around wine labelling.
“There are three elements that we’re waiting for – the first one is that they are proposing to change the definition of wine. At the moment, wine is defined as a beverage produced from the total or partial alcohol fermentation of fresh grapes, which results in a drink between 8.5-15% alcohol. They are proposing to change that definition down to 4.5% – the important thing to note is that 4.5% must have been achieved through alcoholic fermentation, it can’t have gone through a de-alcoholisation process. And we are very supportive of that.
“The second recommendation is that they want to introduce the name ‘partially de-alcoholised wine’ and/or ‘reduced alcohol wine’, for products that have started off as wine, they have at least 30% alcohol removed, and they have no more than 8.5% abv.”
Moss says the WSTA would prefer the term ‘partially de-alcoholised’, in line with the EU. She also makes the point that the word ‘reduced’ “goes into nutrition and health claims territory”.
The third point is also around moving the definition of alcohol-free from 0.05% to 0.5%.
Normalisation
Clarity around definitions will certainly play a key role in consumer understanding and subsequent normalisation of the category.
In a panel about next trends, experts from data and insights companies as well as new producers say they hope in the next ten years the category will be integrated into the wider drinks offer.
Hamilton Lowe, co-founder of functional spirits alternative Smiling Wolf says: “I hope that we’ll get to the stage where, whether it be asking for a beer or a cocktail, it will be the same question as asking for a Coke or a Coke Zero.”
IWSR’s head of low and no alcohol, Susie Goldspink adds that at the moment, we’re at the stage where the industry is establishing itself, with dedicated bays in supermarkets and dedicated buyers.
Goldspink echoes a point discussed earlier in the day about dairy-free milk and cheese now being back in the milk and cheese sections, rather than occupying their own section of the supermarket shelf.
“It’s much more integrated,” she says of dairy and dairy alternatives. “I think that’s the end goal with this. You will have your wine and spirits buyer, and they’re also buying no and low alcohol.”
One retailer that has paved the way in giving the category its own space is Waitrose. A partnership with Diageo last year saw the supermarket roll out dedicated fixtures in 253 stores. Waitrose trading manager Nichola Joyce shares a session at the summit with former Diageo senior category strategy manager Kate Blake, who worked with Joyce on the project.
Joyce says the changes saw 60% more space given to low/no, and the supermarket has seen a 20% increase in volume growth.
“This has been driven by a growth in shopper penetration – more shoppers in Waitrose buying into the no and low category and also those that were already buying the category buying it more often and by spending more money,” she adds.
The pair show a slide that indicates other supermarkets have aped the blue floor and shelf signage.
In another panel centred around normalising, a speaker shows a slide of a German supermarket beer aisle, where the blue signage is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the alcohol-free alternative sits alongside its full-strength counterpart on the shelf. But the slide came with the caveat that Germany is a much more mature market for low/no beer and, like Goldspink says, the UK is still in the ‘establishing’ phase.
Staying with beer and for the likes of Heineken and Lucky Saint, normalisation will come with increased visibility.
Jo Dring, head of media at Heineken, says on a panel centred around normalisation: “A big barrier that’s stopping the masses is visibility and just seeing it in the pub. If you walk into a pub, you’ve got a rough idea of what you’re going to have. If you don’t immediately see that alcohol-free beer or alcohol-free cocktails are on the menu you’re probably going to choose something else, maybe a Diet Coke.”
She also highlighted the company’s partnership with ITV to bring draught Heineken 0.0 to the pubs in both Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
Both Dring and Lucky Saint founder Luke Boase agree that draught is the key to unlocking visibility in the on-trade – and that will surely help drive awareness of the overall opportunity.
Dring also makes another observation about language. She talks about meal replacement drinks Huel and Slim Fast.
She describes Huel as a “badge of honour” for those dedicated to fitness, while Slim Fast doesn’t hold the same kudos.
“They are two very similar products but the way Huel has been branded is this ‘must-have’ for health fanatics. I think it’s an interesting look at a product that has taken a blank sheet of paper and said ‘what if we did this – something completely different?’
She adds: “Rather than looking at alcohol-free beer as a replacement for beer or ‘not as good’ as a beer, think of it as a drink for lunchtime, a refreshing drink that’s going to give me B vitamins – something that’s looking at it in a completely different way.”
And at Lucky Saint, Boase is already tapping into lunchtime, with the beer being part of the Sainsbury’s meal deal offer.
Next steps
Willoughby sums up the day by saying that the category still has a lot of work to do to shift the dial, with the change of government adding an extra hurdle. She warns that the Labour government is “more likely to see alcohol-free as a gateway” to alcohol.
“By working together, we can begin to have a voice in the same way as alcohol brands,” she says, adding that by talking about alcohol-free brands in their own right, rather than as brand extensions, “we can make sure the gateway debate isn’t on the table”.
“Bold and brave” thinking will drive the category, she finishes.
