The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) is the national US trade body…

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I’ve been on the road, speaking at events and gathering stories, which I’m now writing up.

The first event was the Vine to Mind symposium, organised by the Harvard Data Science Initiative, which I attended alongside Pauline Vicard, CEO of Areni Global.

I came away with a lot to say about AI, which I’ll put in an upcoming newsletter.

Today’s story comes from the Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference in Adelaide, where I spoke. Despite the downturn, more than 1,100 people packed the room.

Comfort is the new currency

Alex Beckett, the Global Director of Food and Drink at research house Mintel, had just 20 minutes to talk about what’s driving the food and drink market, and he managed to do it without sounding like a runaway train.

Alex’s first insight— and this won’t surprise anybody — is that consumers are worried about the state of the world. Whether American, British, Australian or beyond, they’re on the hunt for solace, whether that’s Netflix or what’s in their shopping cart.

“In the UK, two-thirds of adults aged 16-to-44 tell us they’re finding more comfort from food and drink than they otherwise would,” he says. “But their expectation for food and drink is to somehow encourage their resilience.”

Ironically, his next chart showed that the food and drink sector itself is much less resilient than it once was. Since 2010, the number of new product launches has fallen by 49% as more businesses prioritise survival over innovation.

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Health haloes and quick fixes

People are happy to pay extra for products that promise to improve their health.

“Everything’s now fortified, everything’s functional. There are added wellness boosts in absolutely everything,” said Alex.

“Nearly six in 10 UK adults say it’s more important to think about the nutritional benefits of food and the calorie content.”

Gen Z is the “quick fix generation — make me the best I can be”. They also want to justify their indulgences; chocolate companies are making them feel better about their choices by adding protein to their products. (Ed: ewwww.)

“The other big thing is ultra-processed food,” said Alex. “More than ever, we know that consumers are concerned about the reported negative health effects of ultra processed foods. I think in future we are going to see more brands reacting to this by being transparent about the ingredients and almost justifying the processing, because processing can be a good thing.”

Processing can offer freshness and safety benefits, “but we need to anticipate consumer suspicion about the hidden ingredients, especially around zero sugar and low alcohol.”

And he said a lot of alcohol’s competitors are talking about ingredients and “spending a lot of money on social media to educate, entertain and hold their hands about these wellness boosts.”

This has major implications for wine companies. As he said, “53% of UK wine drinkers are concerned that low- and no-alcohol wines are highly processed, putting them off drinking wine or drinking it more often.”

But Alex said consumers are happy to buy a low-alcohol wine, if the process is explained to them. He used Pewsey Vale Riesling as an example of a brand whose communication is working. Its label describes it as a “Lighter Riesling” that’s “Made in a lighter style where the grapes are harvested as the first ripe flavours develop.”

Flavour is the new frontier

“We know that US alcohol drinkers are keen to try new trending flavours that they see on social media, or which come from food trends like Dubai chocolate,” he said, with limited edition flavours “going berserk”.

Alex said that palate experimentation is a huge deal for young shoppers and that wine needs to keep up with this pace of change. “Keep an eye on these flavour trends.”

(The Australians are already on the case. Emma Brown, Head of Innovation at the Brown Family Wine Group, who was moderating, told the audience that they had launched a limited edition red wine with salted caramel. The reviews are full of customers begging them to bring it back.)

Alex said another theme right now involves “variations of sweetness,” meaning sweet and spicy, sweet and creamy, sweet and buttery. “The subtle variation of it brings the discovery.”

Escapism sells

As an antidote to the overwhelm, consumers are yearning to get away somewhere, and as they can’t, they’re buying products that have a hint of holiday in them.

“The other big trend we’re seeing in flavours at the moment is escapism — we call it ‘tourism of the taste buds’,” said Alex. “Global twists on familiar varieties.”

Inspired by shows like White Lotus, food and drinks brands are working with, for example, Thai touches, to “whisk you away to places you can’t afford to travel to.” The top tastes that alcohol drinkers are seeking are holiday flavours like lemon, pineapple and peach.

“In China, 62% of drinkers actually prefer tropical flavours in their RTD cocktails.”

Snacking has replaced dinner

Meals are giving way to snacking. “The snacking industry is absolutely soaring. Revenue growth is extraordinary — a lot of people are ditching main meals and snacking instead.”

Alex advised wine brands to think about how to pair with snacks, burgers and pizzas, “because it’s more accessible”.

He also noted that, “In the States in females 22-44, their usage of Champagne rosé and wine cocktails is absolutely flying.” What they want is, “accessible, sweet, refreshing.”

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Sustainability takes a back seat

Consumers are “deprioritising sustainability” right now. Instead, they’re focusing on taste and price.

“The takeaway is that compromising on taste or price makes it so much harder for any kind of sustainably positioned food and drink product to win over consumers right now.”

Yet, paradoxically, people are “genuinely scared” about climate change and they’re actively looking for reasons to make small changes — but they want these changes to benefit themselves, as well as the planet.

One area where this tension is playing out is in packaging; there’s more interest in glass because of concerns about microplastics.

“We know that 40% of UK wine drinkers say a canned wine from their favourite brand would appeal to them,” said Alex. Among the 18-34 group, that number jumps to 61%. “Cans really work, but the benefits need to be highlighted.”

One example he gave of a brand successfully tapping into the desire for sustainability plus added benefits was Vinca, which offers organic wines in both cans and limited edition aluminium bottles, and which is flying off the shelves at Tesco. “As an added incentive, they claim that because of their canning process, they’re keeping their sulphur levels extremely low.”

And people are also thinking about the way something is farmed.

“More people are getting the importance of soil health and it’s really resonating,” said Alex, noting that McDonald’s in China has invested in regenerative agriculture, and that 55% of European adults believe that plants grown in healthy soil make for more nutritious food.

Alex Beckett’s key insights:

1. People want comfort and solace right now

2. Wellness sells, but so do quick fixes

3. No-alcohol wines must explain how they’re made

4. Sweet tropical flavours are in demand

5. Eco claims need to come with personal benefits

6. Education should be entertaining

7. Drinks companies need to understand that everyone is overwhelmed

The talk I wish I’d recorded

What I particularly appreciated was a presentation by Belinda Elworthy on maintaining mental health under pressure — the Australian wine community had been rocked by another untimely rural death the week before the conference, so it was both timely and practical. Unfortunately, I was on the same stage, so I couldn’t record it, but it’s well worth checking out her work.

Why wine people should care about oat milk

This week on the Drinks Insider podcast, I talked to Stuart Forsyth, the Gen X slacker-turned-global oat milk mogul behind Minor Figures. What started as a story about hipster coffee turned into a masterclass in brand-building, FMCG strategy, and scaling from kitchen experiments to international production under pressure.

If you work in wine or spirits and think oat milk isn’t your problem, think again. This is what it looks like when a challenger brand rewrites the rules. I also learned all about widget cans, KeepCup gossip, and why attitude sells better than dairy.

Plus dry humour, drywall, and the moment a joke turned into a company.

You’ll find it on Amazon, Spotify, and Apple, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Please leave a comment and rating! It helps the algorithm.

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These are the questions that Lulie Halstead and Felicity Carter will answer in their new podcast ‘A Question of Drinks’.

Conceived as the ‘Freakonomics of beverages’, this new podcast looks at the weird and wonderful economic, technological and social drivers that influence what it is we drink.

“Trends don’t typically appear out of nowhere,” says Lulie. “What appear to be organic movements are often the result of technological or underlying social changes.”

“As researchers, we’re both very interested in how and why the whole drinks landscape came to be what it is,” says Felicity. “Where are all the blue drinks, for example? That’s what I want to know.”

The first three episodes were released today.

Inside the first three A Question of Drinks episodes:

• Episode 1: The Hidden Drivers of Fashion In Wine
  looks at why some wine styles become popular, while others disappear, never to be seen again.

“Most people think the market is driven by taste preferences, but often it’s external market conditions that drive our choices,” explains Lulie. “Changes in technology and social norms drive innovation, and only then do drinkers adopt them.”

• Episode 2: The Surprising and Sometimes Violent History of the Gin and Tonic looks at this iconic drink from all angles, from the gin craze through to the modern revival.
  
  “This is one of those situations where a single legal change overturned the whole drinks market,” says Felicity.
  

• Episode 3: Do Award-Winning Wines Taste Better?
  

  The title says it all.

  “I expect this one to be controversial,” says Lulie.

Future episodes will cover topics as varied as the unstoppable rise of rosé to why Guinness is so popular.

Episodes are released fortnightly on Spotify and Apple. Listeners can catch up with episodes through the free ‘A Question of Drinks’ newsletter: aquestionofdrinks.substack.com

(And don’t worry — this doesn’t affect Drinks Insider in any way. It’s in addition!)

Meet the A Question of Drinks hosts

Lulie Halstead brings her data-driven approach to bear on each question. The founder and Chief Executive of Wine Intelligence, Lulie built the company into an international wine research powerhouse and then sold to PE-backed IWSR in 2020, where she moved to become a Non-Executive Board Director. She is a Board Trustee of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and today helps wine and spirit companies ensure their brand portfolios meet future market, customer, and consumer needs.

Felicity Carter is an editor, journalist and researcher, and founder of Drinks Insider media and content consultancy. Previously she was the founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix and Editor-in-Chief of Meininger’s International wine trade magazine, read in 38 countries.

For more information, please contact lulie@intellima.co.uk or felicity@drinksinsider.com

OK, let’s get into it. This is a recap of the interview I did …

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According to Katerina Axelsson, CEO and fo…

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Rowena is the co-founder of Denomination, a brand design agency headquartered in Sydney, with offices in San Francisco and London.

Rowena Curlewis, Denomination

Here are 5 of her insights:

1. The goal is to get people to handle the product

The design should be so arresting, that people will pick it up to get a closer look.

“Once you’ve picked up the bottle, the likelihood of you buying the bottle is increased significantly,” says Rowena. 

Once someone has handled the bottle, they’re more likely to remember it. “When you see it again, you automatically get this feeling of trust, because you’ve seen it before and it feels familiar.”

2. Get the brief right

Great design comes from a great brief; the brief (a concise summary of the key objectives and guidelines) is the most essential part of any design.

But describing your brand can be as difficult as trying to write your bio — few of us are good at describing ourselves. That’s why a good design agency expends a lot of energy in the discovery process.

“We will ask so many questions of the clients to get at some of the nuggets,” says Rowena. “Often the information you gather during that briefing process really sparks the creative ideas that end up forming the brand.”

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3. Don’t forget the capsule

Many bottles are destined to end up submerged in ice buckets or sitting in wells, with only the top poking out.

“I think lots of designers forget the role that the capsule can play,” says Rowena.

Make the capsule look striking and memorable, so it’s the first bottle someone will reach for.

4. Naming is key for the on-trade

“You’ve only got a short space on a wine list and you need to communicate quite a lot,” says Rowena. “You need to work out: what is it my brand needs to do compared to the other brands on that wine list? Does it need to spark engagement, or interest, or project the credentials?”

She adds that consumers get anxious when they can’t pronounce a name and “often they’ll skip it because they don’t want to be embarrassed.”

So create a name’s that short, easy to pronounce and meaningful.

5. Too much originality can backfire

It might be tempting to stand out by putting wine into a vodka bottle, but Rowena says it can be a mistake.

When it comes to successful branding, she says, the packaging has to match the contents. If a wine bottle looks like a spirits bottle, or vice versa, “they just make everything within the bottle so disruptive that it reduces the level of credibility or authenticity.”

Fast Takes

1. London is a great place to find top designers.

2. Every region has its own “quintessential design cues” and using them will project credibility.

3. Sustainability is understood in much the same way globally.

4. There’s an easy way to tell whether the packaging is working, according to Rowena — the sales results.

5. Luxury and fashion collaborations are bigger than ever.

6. There’s an anti-”better-for-you” wine trend emerging.

7. The cost of goods isn’t going down any time soon.

This wine is not advertising itself as “better for you”.

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The Big Idea

“Storytelling is a way to create an emotional connection with a consumer. Once you create that emotional connection, all sorts of other wonderful things happen in your brain in terms of recall and memorability and attachment to a brand. I think storytelling can take your brand down a path where consumers can fall in love with it.”

Rowena Curlewis, Denomination

There’s lots more in the episode, which you can find here. Don’t forget to leave five stars!