What's attracting the attention of BeverageDaily readers? Here's a round-up of our most read articles from April.
What's piquing the attention of BeverageDaily readers? We take a look at the most read articles from the last month.
Heineken Silver – a premium lower-carb, lower-cal beer – has launched in the US: bringing in a new option to fit between flagship Heineken and alcohol-free Heineken 0.0.
Heineken Silver comes in at 4% ABV, compared to 5.4% for flagship Heineken and 0.0% for Heineken 0.0.
Heineken Silver was initially launched in Vietnam in 2019 and had reached 28 markets by the end of 2022, including China, India and Western Europe.
Heineken is confident that Heineken Silver can serve to open up a new market, rather than simply bringing existing Heineken drinkers over to the new product.
“We are tapping into a new market of consumers with Heineken Silver. The product aims to appeal to a broader range of consumer tastes, specifically the experience-seeking consumer. It's a great product to complement an experience seeker's time with friends and family, like at the beach, music festival or more,” the company’s vice president of marketing for Heineken Brand told us.
The flavor of beer begins to change as soon as it’s packaged - so does it stay fresher in a bottle or can? A study published in ACS Food Science & Technology sheds new light on the matter.
PepsiCo says it wants to go beyond its own business in its sustainability efforts: launching the new platform to help its customers achieve their sustainability goals.
The initial launch of ‘pep+ Partners for Tomorrow’ takes place in the US, with plans to expand the program to key global markets by 2024.
Under the program, PepsiCo will champion its ‘comprehensive customer sustainability offerings’ on a single platform, then work with customers to help them implement the initiatives.
That could mean, for example, that a customer can sign up to on-demand collection of recyclable beverage containers: which PepsiCo can process to create recycled PET packaging.
Having created and tested its lightest bottle yet, Champagne Telmont believes it can ‘drastically reduce’ the carbon emissions of the industry if it can encourage widespread adoption of the new design.
Together with French glassmaker Verallia, the house has successfully completed testing of the lightest Champagne bottle that weighs 800g (28.2oz) – which is 35g (1.2oz) lighter than today’s standard Champagne bottles.
While that might not sound much, the pressure created by sparkling wine inside the bottle makes it a technical feat, explains the brand. And – with less glass meaning less CO2 – every gram counts, says the brand.
The Brewers Association – the trade association for small and independent US brewers – has released its latest figures for the US craft beer industry.
The picture is one of a maturing market struggling to grow volumes, but benefiting from a continued increase in premium products.
“2022 presented small brewers with a number of challenges, including rising operating and material costs and increasing competition, particularly in distribution,” said Bart Watson, chief economist, Brewers Association. “In this maturing and competitive market, collective growth for the category is hard to come by.”
In 2022, US craft brewers collectively produced 24.3 million barrels of beer, on par with 2021’s numbers, and craft’s overall beer market share by volume grew to 13.2%, up from 13.1% the previous year (That is against a backdrop of a 3% shrink in the overall beer market by volume).
But with craft beer naturally attracting a premium, the category performed well in value terms. Retail dollar value for the category in 2022 is estimated at $28.46bn, representing a 24.6% market share and 6% growth over 2021.