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Bottles of beer emblazoned with the five Olympic rings are already rolling off the production line at Anheuser-Busch InBev NV\u2019s brewery in Belgium, in preparation for the games in Paris this summer.<\/p>\n
It has been 100 years since the French capital last hosted the summer Olympics, and the city wants to make a mark after Covid meant the Tokyo Games were held in virtually empty stadiums. And now, for the first time ever there will be a beer sponsor for an event that showcases the pinnacle of human sporting achievements.<\/p>\n
But in this case, the drink \u2014 Corona Cero \u2014\u00a0doesn\u2019t have any alcohol.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s biggest brewer has chosen to advertise to billions of sports fans a zero-alcohol product only launched in Europe two years ago. AB InBev hopes to use the Paris Games \u2014 expected to be one of the biggest marketing bonanzas the Olympics has ever seen \u2014 to improve its position in the only part of the global beer industry that\u2019s really growing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Worth $13\u00a0billion and counting, brands from Heineken to Guinness, and now Corona Cero, see a cohort of health-conscious consumers \u2014\u00a0many young, others older and wanting out of a booze culture \u2014 whose wallets they can tap.<\/p>\n
Master brewers have been working on formulas to try to replicate the taste and texture of the real thing.\u00a0Heineken, Guinness and Budweiser are all now available alcohol-free, while hundreds of craft brewers and newer labels are emerging to target the market.<\/p>\n
For Michel Doukeris, the chief executive officer of AB InBev, it\u2019s quite simple: \u201cThe consumer has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
No-alcohol beer, or beer with alcohol content under 0.5%, is a tiny corner of the market, its 31.4 million hectoliters a year dwarfed by the 1.93 billion hectoliters of alcoholic beer, according to GlobalData Plc. But it\u2019s had an annual compound growth rate of\u00a03.6% since 2018, versus 0.3% for alcoholic beer. In the US, adults age 18 to 34 who say they drink has dropped from 72% in the early 2000s to 62%, according to Gallup.<\/p>\n
Those are numbers businesses can\u2019t ignore, especially AB InBev. It\u2019s already lagging behind and says it\u00a0will miss\u00a0a target of\u00a020% of sales from low or no-alcohol beer by 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of sports events like the Olympics where the flagship brands are often the 0% variant,\u201d said Susie Goldspink, head of no and low alcohol insights at market researcher\u00a0IWSR. \u201cThat\u2019s partly because it\u2019s such a growing area but it also helps with their moderation agenda of responsible drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a wider benefit for beer companies. Because their no-alcohol versions often share the same name and labelling as the original\u00a0beer, the promotions help brand awareness and allow firms to circumvent increasingly tighter restrictions around alcohol advertising.<\/p>\n
The Olympics is part of a trend of zero-alcohol beers being promoted via sport, including Heineken 0.0 with\u00a0Formula 1 and\u00a0Diageo Plc\u2019s Guinness 0.0 at the Six Nations rugby tournament. Carlsberg A\/S last year handed out 400,000 cans of French no-alcohol beer Tourtel Twist at the Tour de France cycling race.<\/p>\n
And in a sign of the competition between brands, Carlsberg is positioning Tourtel Twist as the non-alcoholic beer of choice at the Paris Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the official beer of Paris and France,\u201d\u00a0said Jacob Aarup-Andersen, CEO of Carlsberg. \u201cThey are the official beer of the Olympic movement. At the events you are going to be served Tourtel.\u201d<\/p>\n
US-based Athletic Brewing Co., which sells only non-alcoholic drinks, says an Olympic sponsorship benefits the entire category.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes to move the needle you need bigger players that can help drive awareness,\u201d said John Walker, the company\u2019s co-founder.<\/p>\n
For drinks companies, there\u2019s a pressing need to keep up with shifting trends that have already proved the death knell for many businesses. More than 7,000 bars in the UK closed in the last decade, according to the British Beer and Pub Association. While alcohol duties, rents, costs and regulations all played a part, so too have changing drinking habits.<\/p>\n
As consumers, particularly social media-driven millennial and Gen Z demographic groups, look to temper their alcohol intake, it\u2019s better to have a viable \u2014 and attractive \u2014 offering rather than have them turn to a rival brand, a soda or water.<\/p>\n
Heineken 0.0 is the market leader in the no-alcohol beer market globally, according to GlobalData. Other big sellers are Japan\u2019s Suntory All-Free, and Brahma 0.0%, owned by AB InBev.<\/p>\n
At the world\u2019s oldest continuously operating brewery in Germany, non-alcoholic beers have been in production since the early 1990s. But in 2020, thanks to rising demand, Bavaria-owned Weihenstephan more than doubled its alcohol-free beer capacity, taking a bet on future growth. Today, its non-alcoholic wheat beer is almost 10% of sales, and its third best-selling product.<\/p>\n
But all the promotion in the world can only take zero-alcohol beer so far if it isn\u2019t any good.<\/p>\n
Until relatively recently, non-alcoholic beer compared poorly to the original, leaving drinkers unsatisfied. For brewers, there was a technical conundrum: how to achieve the depth of taste without alcohol. Do they stop beer from forming alcohol during the fermentation process or do they remove it after brewing a full-strength version?<\/p>\n
According to Jim\u00a0Koch, chairman of Boston Beer Company, which makes Samuel Adams,\u00a0taste breakthroughs have only been possible in recent years as brewers figured out a low temperature distillation process. The brewer introduced its own non-alcohol product, Just The Haze, in 2021.<\/p>\n
Launched in 2017, Heineken 0.0 is made with water, barley malt, hop extracts and yeast \u2014 the same ingredients used for Heineken. The alcohol is then removed using vacuum distillation, after which natural flavorings and aromas\u00a0are blended back in to make the taste more closely resemble the original.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a couple of years, I refused to start developing Heineken 0.0,\u201d said Willem van Waesberghe, Heineken\u2019s global master brewer. \u201cBecause I\u2019d never tasted a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Olympic Games kick off in two months, with the Opening Ceremony\u00a0taking place on July 26. AB InBev will soon unveil details of its\u00a0campaign, which it expects will\u00a0\u201caccelerate no-alcohol beer growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond that, getting no-alcohol beer on tap is expected to deliver the next leap in terms of volumes, increasing sales in bars by making\u00a0the drinks more socially acceptable. It\u2019s yet another technical challenge, but one that brewers are working on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like ros\u00e9 in the south of France is always better than at home,\u201d\u00a0said Waesberghe. \u201cAnd in a bar you like the draft, it gives you the impression of authenticity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013With assistance from Tiffany Kary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n