A tidal wave of companies, including those owned by celebrities, are trying to tap into the non-alcoholic beer market, which is gaining traction among a large swath of consumers. Bump Williams, CEO of Bump Williams Consulting, projects growth in the category for the next decade, with double-digit increases for at least the next five years. "Drinking a non-alcoholic beer today is not like it was 25 years ago when the only people drinking them were recovering alcoholics.
The growth of people being more discerning about what they're putting in their body while not wanting to say no to moments of making memories is going to stay." Herman told Fox Business, adding that "nonalcoholic beer is the most natural adjacency to the real thing. The flavor and experience is very much 1 to 1. Some of the other categories don't have the same 1 to 1.
All of this creates critical mass among beer distributors and retailers that validates the category and makes product increasingly available on and off premise," Ottenstein said. "At restaurants and grocery stores, consumers expect to see beers and increasingly a variety of them." Ottenstein projected that the "category should continue to grow much faster than regular beer and could at some point become 5% or more of the total market in the U.S.