Home drinking less hassle – Mintel UK survey
The survey found that 27 per cent reckon that drinking is more intimate at home while 30 per cent admit to a dislike of crowded bars.
And people are likely to continue drifting towards home drinking as prices continue to rise in the on-trade relative to the off-trade. Other consumers are likely to be priced out of the market altogether, according to Mintel which reports, “Price pressures show no sign of abating” and this will continue to contribute to a decline in the number of people going out.
The beer and wine markets will themselves witness a sales decline over the next five years, predicts Mintel, when beer sales will slide due to over-reliance on the pub trade.
Already, lager sales have seen a dramatic decline in pubs which Mintel claims is due to the lack of innovation in the lager segment. Lager sales across the board declined from 2006 to 2010. However the report predicts a recovery, estimating growth at six per cent over the next five years.
Wine sales will suffer due to over-reliance on imports.
However, despite one in three adults liking having a local pub and considering them an important part of the social fabric, they’re not actually going out to their local and Mintel predicts that the alcohol market will experience a six per cent decline over the next five years as a result of a combination of factors such as restraints on consumer spend, health concerns and taxation.
Consumers continue to eat out, but around a third of them reduce expenditure when they do so or curtail the frequency of their visits.
Nevertheless, since 2000 the UK’s pub catering market has increased 46 per cent and is now worth £6.1 million.
(For more on this, see our Industry Report section).
Mintel’s British Lifestyles 2011 survey found that 27 per cent reckon that drinking is more intimate at home while 30 per cent admit to a dislike of crowded bars.
