The expertise and high-level corporate industry experience of BMC Strategic Associates™ (BMCSA) gives us a unique ability to provide management consulting to the world’s leading food and beverage companies. By employing some of the most knowledgeable and experienced beverage experts in the world, we are able to provide meaningful insights and practical solutions in addressing even the most challenging of client needs.
BMCSA™'s approach allows for fast project starts and efficient performance which result in effective and practical solutions that draw on our vast reservoir of proprietary market information, extensive experience and unparalleled access to the industry.
BMC Advisors (BMCA) was designed to advise owners of middle-market beverage companies on asset sales, asset acquisitions and valuations. BMCA leverages more than 40 years of beverage experience and more than 50 completed transactions along with extensive proprietary data and research while being able to provide unparalleled industry access and expertise.
BMCA adheres to a strict code of confidentiality throughout the transaction process to provide expert counsel to each of our clients. Areas of specialty include asset sales and acquisition, equity funding, M&A advisory, evaluations, expert witness and impairment services.
When it comes to keeping tabs on the ever changing beverage market, no one does it better than BMC Research/Analytics (BMCRA). We offer both custom and off-the-shelf research from our proprietary DrinkTell™ database that provides a complete picture of the beverage landscape to assist you with your decision making in the form of reports, databases, custom research and private presentations.
BMCRA uses total market volume and dollar data that sets itself apart from "measured channel" data sources and includes added value through insights, analysis and projections needed to make the right decisions to thrive in today's marketplace.
The DrinkTell™ database and predictive model is BMC's comprehensive portal to anything beverage. Subscribers are able to create customized cross-category reports and access key information in just a few clicks from any device. DrinkTell™ is the tool beverage companies, beverage industry suppliers and advisors need to quickly analyze the beverage landscape and spot growth opportunities.
The culmination of more than 40 years tracking the beverage industry, DrinkTell™ offers all-sales-channel inclusive U.S. beverage data, import and global statistics and much more. DrinkTell™ provides the insight necessary to enhance decision-making and maximize team performance.
The Beverage Strategist™ delivers invaluable data-driven industry insights and analysis directly to your email in-box every two weeks in newsletter format. Covering both alcohol and non-alcohol beverage categories, The Beverage Strategist™ provides you with the information and analysis you need to navigate the ever-changing beverage marketplace.
The publication is designed to let you quickly access key industry insights and provide you with data, forecasts and other information from BMC's DrinkTell™ database including brands to watch, new product launches, Wall Street analyst reports and much more. A one-year subscription to 24 issues is available for $945.
Beverage Marketing Corporation's annual and quarterly research reports draw from our more than 40 years of experience serving the U.S. and global beverage industry to provide the big picture as well as the detailed data and market insight necessary to track shifting trends and evaluate the competition. Each BMC Report provides a total market, all-sales-channel-inclusive portrait of historical and current market trends as well as future prospects within its subject range.
BMC Reports also act as decision support tools, providing reliable data and an objective third party view to help companies identify opportunities and determine which ones best fit their strategic plans and growth objectives.
For more than 40 years, Beverage Marketing Corporation's annual publication, The BMC Beverage Company Database has been the leading guidebook to the U.S. and Canadian beverage industries. Continuously updated and expanded, the data contained in each listing of this directory provides valuable contact information along with other information pertaining to the company's area of beverage business. With 6,500+ listings containing 14,500+ brands and 19,500+ industry executive names, this database is the defining tool when indentifying key industry leads in the U.S and Canadian beverage marketplace.
BMC annually co-hosts The Beverage Forum, the only global all-beverage executive conference. This international marketing conference has brought together top beverage professionals for knowledge exchange and networking for more than 25 years and provides a grand stage on which to feature the finest of the beverage business.
The Beverage Forum consistently features top beverage executive presentations and interviews, lively panels debating the pressing topics of the day and engaging breakout sessions that provide a more hands-on environment to dissect complex topics.
Visit the Forum's web site »
12/6/2018
Written by: Brian Sudano
In a tough on-premise market, barrel-aged spirits, craft and import beer and craft vodka are again the big winners in 2018. Nearly everyone has had that moment where they're at the bar or sitting at a restaurant and pondered "hmmm... what shall I have to drink?" A big part of the fun of eating out is getting a wide menu of drink options that most home bars can't match. Every one of these drink order decisions is based on personal preference, availability and in more and more cases, a willingness to experiment. Across the country, billions of these individual decisions add up over time, creating winners and losers within both the alcohol and food service industries and right now, Millennials are in charge at the bar. Our favorite published research products are our annual consumer studies where we can watch trends change almost in real time. Our recent report on college behavior, U.S. College Student Beverage Consumption and Attitudes, June 2018, is we believe one of our most interesting titles as Millennial behavior patterns in non-alcoholic beverages are now being passed down to Generation Z with positive long-term implications for bottled water and coffee and negative long-term implications for soft drinks and juice. Produced in partnership with Technomic, Beverage Marketing Corp's 2018 On-Premise Intelligence Report is an excellent companion piece to our college behavioral analysis, which included both alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages. This new report takes a deep dive into on-premise trends, which are overwhelmingly driven by young consumers. Not surprisingly, as with our college behavior report, the results in this year's report reflect Millennials' beverage-related desires and attitudes. Diners and bar goers are seeking both variety and experimentation in beer and spirits and shunning wine to some degree. Not surprisingly, big traditional brands and categories are growing less interesting to young consumers with each passing year. This is a phenomenon we see across nearly all consumer goods. In our newly launched report, we see the winners in non-traditional outlets like tap rooms and distillery tasting rooms, barrel-aged spirits like whiskey, rum and cognac, craft and import beer and Tito's vodka, the fastest growing brand on-premise. The areas of weakness are traditional outlets, big brand vodka, wine and light and premium domestic beer. We are just starting to see the beginning of a shift to concerns about recreational marijuana, which lends itself to at-home consumption. This will likely play to the advantage of on-line delivery services while eating away at incremental alcohol consumption opportunities. When we look at 2018 compared to 2017, the basic trends of the industry are intact from year to year. The consumer desire for quality, variety and authenticity continue to climb while flavor preferences are evolving. Total on-premise alcohol volume and dollars are on track to end 2018 with a slightly faster rate of increase than in previous years. We estimate that the on-premise channel will outpace the overall expansion trend at retail. For 2018, total alcohol volume in restaurants and bars is projected to grow at only +0.3%, a good result when compared to a nearly -1% decline expected at off-trade retail. Positive alcohol dollar revenue growth in restaurants and bars will be attributable almost solely to price increases and premiumization. Our projections look for on-premise dollars to grow +2.5%, outperforming the off-premise expectation of only a +1.9% gain. While still just over 23% of volume, on-premise now represents just more than 50% of dollars, a slight dollar percentage uptick from last year, highlighting on-trade's importance to industry health. Taking a longer view, the most salient problem is that traffic remains soft and the competition for consumer occasions is ramping up in intensity. The growth of alcohol selections in broad venues such as sports stadiums, the growing number of quick-service restaurants adding drinks and the expansion of wineries and brewery tasting rooms is compounding the competitive pressure on the space for traditional outlets. In a business which is growing tougher and tougher, the latest twist is delivery, which poses a threat to incremental consumption. On-line services such as Postmates, UberEats and DoorDash are eating away at on-premise adult beverage occasions as consumers can punch up full restaurant menus without leaving home — and losing the opportunity to order a drink. Restaurant operators like the incremental sales, but alcohol is typically not part of the purchase for legal and practical reasons. There is something lost here. Overall, the on-trade is healthy but not without its challenges. Once again, the key will be to unlock the needs of Millennials and follow. For more information on how Millennials are driving on-premise alcohol trends and beverage trends in general see: 2018 On-Premise Intelligence Report College Student Beverage Consumption and Attitudes/U.S.
In a tough on-premise market, barrel-aged spirits, craft and import beer and craft vodka are again the big winners in 2018. Nearly everyone has had that moment where they're at the bar or sitting at a restaurant and pondered "hmmm... what shall I have to drink?" A big part of the fun of eating out is getting a wide menu of drink options that most home bars can't match. Every one of these drink order decisions is based on personal preference, availability and in more and more cases, a willingness to experiment. Across the country, billions of these individual decisions add up over time, creating winners and losers within both the alcohol and food service industries and right now, Millennials are in charge at the bar.
Our favorite published research products are our annual consumer studies where we can watch trends change almost in real time. Our recent report on college behavior, U.S. College Student Beverage Consumption and Attitudes, June 2018, is we believe one of our most interesting titles as Millennial behavior patterns in non-alcoholic beverages are now being passed down to Generation Z with positive long-term implications for bottled water and coffee and negative long-term implications for soft drinks and juice.
Produced in partnership with Technomic, Beverage Marketing Corp's 2018 On-Premise Intelligence Report is an excellent companion piece to our college behavioral analysis, which included both alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages. This new report takes a deep dive into on-premise trends, which are overwhelmingly driven by young consumers. Not surprisingly, as with our college behavior report, the results in this year's report reflect Millennials' beverage-related desires and attitudes. Diners and bar goers are seeking both variety and experimentation in beer and spirits and shunning wine to some degree. Not surprisingly, big traditional brands and categories are growing less interesting to young consumers with each passing year. This is a phenomenon we see across nearly all consumer goods.
In our newly launched report, we see the winners in non-traditional outlets like tap rooms and distillery tasting rooms, barrel-aged spirits like whiskey, rum and cognac, craft and import beer and Tito's vodka, the fastest growing brand on-premise. The areas of weakness are traditional outlets, big brand vodka, wine and light and premium domestic beer. We are just starting to see the beginning of a shift to concerns about recreational marijuana, which lends itself to at-home consumption. This will likely play to the advantage of on-line delivery services while eating away at incremental alcohol consumption opportunities.
When we look at 2018 compared to 2017, the basic trends of the industry are intact from year to year. The consumer desire for quality, variety and authenticity continue to climb while flavor preferences are evolving. Total on-premise alcohol volume and dollars are on track to end 2018 with a slightly faster rate of increase than in previous years. We estimate that the on-premise channel will outpace the overall expansion trend at retail.
For 2018, total alcohol volume in restaurants and bars is projected to grow at only +0.3%, a good result when compared to a nearly -1% decline expected at off-trade retail. Positive alcohol dollar revenue growth in restaurants and bars will be attributable almost solely to price increases and premiumization. Our projections look for on-premise dollars to grow +2.5%, outperforming the off-premise expectation of only a +1.9% gain. While still just over 23% of volume, on-premise now represents just more than 50% of dollars, a slight dollar percentage uptick from last year, highlighting on-trade's importance to industry health.
Taking a longer view, the most salient problem is that traffic remains soft and the competition for consumer occasions is ramping up in intensity. The growth of alcohol selections in broad venues such as sports stadiums, the growing number of quick-service restaurants adding drinks and the expansion of wineries and brewery tasting rooms is compounding the competitive pressure on the space for traditional outlets.
In a business which is growing tougher and tougher, the latest twist is delivery, which poses a threat to incremental consumption. On-line services such as Postmates, UberEats and DoorDash are eating away at on-premise adult beverage occasions as consumers can punch up full restaurant menus without leaving home — and losing the opportunity to order a drink. Restaurant operators like the incremental sales, but alcohol is typically not part of the purchase for legal and practical reasons. There is something lost here.
Overall, the on-trade is healthy but not without its challenges. Once again, the key will be to unlock the needs of Millennials and follow.
For more information on how Millennials are driving on-premise alcohol trends and beverage trends in general see:
« Back to Latest News