New stores specializing in the sale of non-alcoholic beverages are popping up across Canada, as demand for alcoholic beverages declines and consumers are looking for different products.
Jonathan Barembruch noticed that the supply of non-alcoholic drinks was particularly lacking when his partner became pregnant. So he came up with the idea of opening the very first soft drink store in Calgary, called the Santé Dry Bottle Shop, last July.
“I realized that there is really a gap not only in the availability of good non-alcoholic drinks, but also in the promotion that we make of them,” explained Mr. Barembruch, who has experience in the restaurant and bar industry, in interview.
“I decided I wanted to change the way people think about soft drinks, to show them that there is real quality, passion and care that goes into making these products,” he said. mentioned.
Mr. Barembruch’s business is one of many soft drink stores that have popped up across the country over the past year.
“We’re starting to see that there’s a commercial opportunity, from a retail perspective, in the soft drinks space,” observed Robert Carter, who is a food industry analyst at StratonHunter Group. .
The offering of alcohol-free products is constantly improving, in terms of variety and taste, “which is resonating with consumers,” he added.
Alcohol consumption on the decline
Young people are less likely than their predecessors to consume alcohol, Mr. Carter noted. And meanwhile, older generations are increasingly thinking about the consequences of alcohol on their health.
A Statistics Canada survey carried out in 2021 revealed that one in five Canadians drank less than before the pandemic.
In 2023, Health Canada changed its recommendations for alcohol consumption, saying alcoholic drinks should be limited to two per week – a significant drop from its 2011 report which indicated a maximum of 10 drinks per week. week for women and 15 drinks for men was acceptable.
“Drinking alcohol has been part of the culture for a long time, so even though there are drinks that imitate the taste, it is not always easy to give up the habit,” said Cristian Villamarin, who also opened a store specializing in the sale of alcohol-free products, this time in Toronto.
Since he opened the doors of his business in January, Mr. Villamarin has welcomed thousands of visitors who have come to taste his more than 100 beers, wines and non-alcoholic cocktails, but who also have many questions.
In particular, many of his customers wonder why a wine without alcohol costs as much as a wine that contains alcohol.
Alcohol-free wines go through the same long process as alcoholic wines, he says, including distillation, fermentation and aging, but there is an additional step to remove the alcohol from the drink, which may require a lot of work.
“It’s a fairly common misconception that non-alcoholic wine is just grape juice,” Mr. Barembruch also noted in Calgary.
Right moment
Carter said now may be a “very good time” to open a non-alcoholic store as the multi-billion dollar alcohol industry continues to decline.
In a report published last December, Statistics Canada showed that alcohol sales expressed in volume fell by 1.2% over a period monitored between 2021 and 2022 compared to the previous monitoring period. This is the biggest drop in more than a decade.
But starting your own business is not an easy thing. And for people who want to start selling non-alcoholic products, they also need to convince investors that everything will be profitable.
A couple from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, learned this the hard way last fall.
Their idea was similar to that of other non-alcoholic stores, which is to offer customers an opportunity to come and taste new options available to them, explained the store’s owner, Racquel Foran.
But banks and insurance companies did not understand their business model.
“It wasn’t easy to get insurance and get a loan from the bank, because it seemed like they didn’t understand that we could be successful by only selling non-alcoholic products,” said -she said.
Despite everything, Mme Foran is convinced that this perception will change quickly.
“It’s a growing industry: more and more people are getting into it, and fewer and fewer people are drinking alcohol,” she recalled.
reference: www.lapresse.ca