Wine and beer sales down sharply in Canada
Wine and beer sales are down in Canada, while ciders and spirits continue to grow in popularity.
Statistics Canada released Wednesday a report on the control and sale of alcoholic beverages and cannabis between April 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022.
During this period, sales of alcoholic beverages in Canada reached $26.1 billion, an increase of 2.4% over the previous year. This increase is mainly due to inflation, says Statistics Canada. The price of alcoholic beverages increased by 2.8% from March 2021 to March 2022.
Expressed in volume, sales of alcoholic beverages are experiencing their first decline since 2013-2014. They fell by 1.2% to 3,141 million liters in 2021-2022.
This figure equates to 9.5 standard alcoholic beverages per week per person of legal drinking age.
Wine sales expressed in volume have saw their biggest drop since Statistics Canada began collecting data on alcohol sales in 1949.
Drop 4% to 516 million liters in 2021-22, or 2.4 standard glasses of wine per week per person of legal drinking age.
Wine continues to be the most popular beverage in Quebec, accounting for 43.4% of total sales of alcoholic products.
Beer is also experiencing an unprecedented drop in sales.
In volume, beer sales fell 2.8% to 2061 million liters in 2021-2020. This figure corresponds to 3.7 standard bottles of beer per week per person of legal drinking age.
Along with wine sales, this is the lowest level on record for beer sales volume per capita since 1949.
For a third consecutive year, total beer sales from liquor boards, their agencies and other retail outlets are down. For the 2021-2022 period, sales decreased by 0.7% to a total of $9.1 billion.
Beer remains the most popular alcoholic product on the market with 34.9% of total alcohol sales in 2021-2022.
Beer sales, however, are declining in recent years: in 10 years, its market share has fallen by 8.8%.
This proportion was gained by coolers(alcoholic flavored drinks) and ciders (+5%), spirits (+2.5%) and wine (+1.3%).
In 2021-2022, sales of coolers and ciders s& #x27;was $2.1 billion, an increase of 13.5% over the prior year. In 2020-2021, their sales were up 40.2%.
In 2021-2022, cannabis sales in Canada were $4 billion, or $131 per person of legal age to consume cannabis.
< p class="e-p">Quebecers are the least likely to buy cannabis: in the province, sales were $89 per person. Yukon ($291) had the highest sales.
