17 April 2014 - Best Beer HQ
News: less beer sold in Canada, more wine and liquor
A worrying trend for breweries in The Great White North is seeing more Canadians opting for a glass of wine instead of a pint of beer.
Wine and hard liquor sales in Canada grew by 4.9% and 2.9% respectively in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2014, according to the latest Statistics Canada report on alcohol sales. Meanwhile, beer sales in Canada declined by 0.1% over the same period.
The decline in beer sales to $9.1 billion reflected an overall trend of decreasing market share in Canada. In 2003, beer had a share of 50% of the total alcoholic beverages market, while wine had 24%. In 2013, beer had a market share of 43% and wine increased to 12%.
Overall, beer and liquor stores and agencies sold 2.3 billion litres of beer in 2013. The volume of domestic beer sold decreased 1.7% from 2012 to 2 billion litres. The volume of imported beer didn’t fare any better, declining 3.8% to 0.3 billion litres.
Over a 10-year period beginning in 2003, the market share of domestic beer sold in Canada decreased from 91% to 86% in 2013. Beer from the United States of America accounted for 24.4% of all imported beer, followed by the Netherlands (18.7%) and Mexico (16.6%).
On a per-capita basis, beer sales amounted to 78 litres per person for the 2013 fiscal year, down from 83.6 litres in 2003.