Latest / Best of Business / Dylan Firth: Brewers Association Executive Director on the rise in Kiwis drinking more beer and less wine

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Dylan Firth: Brewers Association Executive Director on the rise in Kiwis drinking more beer and less wine · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Strong beer seems to have been the drink of choice
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  Speaker 2: last year. New data from statscenez out today. It shows
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  Speaker 2: that a bear consumption was up four and a half
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  Speaker 2: percent overall, while drinks more than five percent in strength
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  Speaker 2: were up three point nine percent overall. The volume of
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  Speaker 2: booze that we're drinking available per person, there was a fall.
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  Speaker 2: It has fallen actually for the past four years. Dylan
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  Speaker 2: Firth is the with the Alcohol Beverages Council. He's with me, Hi, Dylan, Yeah, Hi, Ryan,
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  Speaker 2: here go good, thank you. So why do you think
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  Speaker 2: the move to beer or why is beer done well?
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  Speaker 2: And particularly stronger beer.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, if you look at the data
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  Speaker 3: in terms of percentage, that figure of stronger beer has
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  Speaker 3: increased a little bit, but in terms of the segment
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  Speaker 3: of the market, stronger beer makes up a smaller percentage.
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  Speaker 3: So if you're looking at percentages, yes it has increased,
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  Speaker 3: but in terms of volume overall, actually the biggest shifts
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  Speaker 3: have been in people moving from kind of five percent
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  Speaker 3: beers to say four percent beers, and that's one of
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  Speaker 3: the trends we've seen, and that's made up from you know,
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  Speaker 3: your more mainstream products that might be a bit more affordable,
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  Speaker 3: so people are kind of looking at their wallets. But
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  Speaker 3: also we've seen a really big shift to people drinking
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  Speaker 3: low card beers and that also sits in that four
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  Speaker 3: percent range. So that's the big shifts in beer.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, interesting because I do that. I did the low
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  Speaker 2: card beers now and I'm a convert. You know, I'll
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  Speaker 2: never go back. You're not as fat than next day.
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  Speaker 2: It's great.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I mean that's pretty much the biggest segment
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  Speaker 3: of the market now. Low car beers make up about
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  Speaker 3: twenty percent of the beer market in total, so a
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  Speaker 3: lot of those brands are shifting, whether it's the mainstream
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  Speaker 3: stuff for craft. So it's really interesting to see, and
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  Speaker 3: that's a lot of that's driven by consumer preferences.
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  Speaker 2: What about overall the alcohol available per person falling and
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  Speaker 2: falling for four years in a row. What does that
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  Speaker 2: tell us?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people are moving to a more moderate
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  Speaker 3: consumption model where I think people are deciding to still
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  Speaker 3: have a drink, but drink less or drink lower percentage products.
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  Speaker 3: And we've seen this trend happening both domestically and internationally
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  Speaker 3: for years now, and we've you know, really pleasingly seen
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  Speaker 3: that shift and younger people as well, so more conscious
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  Speaker 3: of kind of how much they're drinking and trying to
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  Speaker 3: be cautious around these things.
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  Speaker 2: Table wine down four point one percent to ninety four
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  Speaker 2: million leases. I guess wine is quite a luxury. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: and you've got to buy and be able to afford
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  Speaker 2: a whole bottle of it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, one's an interesting one. We've obviously got quite a
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  Speaker 3: big export wine sector, so the demands around that can
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  Speaker 3: be slightly distant when what you'd say with spirits and
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  Speaker 3: deer because we do export a lot of it, so
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  Speaker 3: those figures have a lot of international impact as well.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, with the Dylan, thank you for that, Dylan Firth,
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  Speaker 2: Deputy Chair of their Alcohol Beverages Council.
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