ShopGrok founder Aaron Cowper was recently featured in an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Speaking on the recent growth of the Ready-To-Drink (RTD) market in Australia, Aaron shared some key insights from ShopGrok’s extensive coverage of the liquor retail market in Australia.
RTD beverages are premixed drinks that offer a convenient alternative to traditional cocktails . The biggest brand in Australia is currently White Claw, which was first introduced in late 2020. Other leading brands include Smirnoff, Hard Fizz, Saintly and Rainbird.
Discovery of this category accelerated during the COVID-19 lockdowns, a period where consumers faced limited options and had to either acquire cocktail-making skills or welcome the availability of pre-made RTD cocktails. More recently, with the recovery of on-trade sales, these beverages have presented a compelling substitute for expensive cocktails amid a rising cost of living.
A record high 20.8% of Australians now drink RTDs in an average month. This is up 5.8% from a year ago and almost double pre pandemic consumption (Roy Morgan).
It is one of the fastest growing segments across the alcohol vertical, valued globally at $1.3 billion in 2022 and projected to grow roughly 14% by 2030.
According to data from ShopGrok’s platform, we found that the number of RTD brands have spiked since the beginning of 2021, partly driven by the hard seltzer wave which initially flourished in the US at the beginning of the pandemic before following suit in the Australian market.
Aaron told journalists, “There’s been an explosion the last three years, particularly in the hard seltzers, hard coffees, premixed cocktails. The premiumised RTDs are the big growth area.”
“You’ve got the more traditional RTDs that have been around since probably the 1990s – Bacardi Breezers was probably one of the first ones, Bundaberg and [Cola],”
You can read the full article here.
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