US Beverage Market Outlook 2023: Inflation, Home Delivery, Health Halos & Other Trends

Report Overview

Most major beverage categories are mature and rely primarily on population growth, leaving marketers with the challenge of bringing something new to the table. The COVID-19 pandemic put a hold on many product innovations, but as the world returns to normal, there is an increasing opportunity for companies to invest in new product innovations, such as ingredient upgrades, sustainable packaging, wellness products, plant-based products, and limited-edition flavors. Appeals to changing consumer preferences, including the wellness, functional, and plant-based areas, will be successful if alongside great taste and a value price.

 

More consumers are trying to limit or avoid sugars in their diets. Marketers are satisfying consumers’ desires with “zero sugar” sodas and other beverages, often as standard offerings launched alongside flagship versions. Many zero sugar products use artificial sweeteners. However, others include natural options like erythritol, stevia leaf extract, and monk fruit or even produce sweet proteins or natural enzymes via fermentation.

Consumers continue to demand exciting new experiences in taste, texture, formats, and branding despite the numerous beverage brands and varieties on the market. Delivering elevated flavor and other experiences gives marketers opportunities to differentiate and enhance the appeal of their products and expand into new product segments, other consumption occasions, and different demographic groups.

A growing number of consumers – particularly younger ones – make food and beverage choices at least partly on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) issues, primarily protecting the environment, animals, and humans. Sustainability issues, most notably those regarding water and land usage and packaging, affect virtually all beverage categories.

Historical and projected retail sales are presented in additional detail for beverages within these primary categories -- carbonated soft drinks, energy and sports drinks, bottled water (plain and enhanced), dairy beverages, dairy alternatives, juices, coffee, and tea. Additionally, the report has dozens of tables showcasing numerical survey data on consumer demographics and psychographics and numerous figures and images highlighting product and marketing trend examples. This report also goes in-depth on COVID-19 trends affecting the beverage market.

With a focus on growth opportunities and “what’s next” – along with bringing decades of food and beverage market perspective and analysis to the table – Beverage Market Outlook 2023: Inflation, Home Delivery, Health Halos, & Other Trends is packed with actionable insights about consumer trends, behavior, and motivations. This report delivers predictions and recommendations designed to guide retailers, service providers, wholesalers, beverage suppliers and bottlers, packaging firms, and investors in making business decisions about the beverage market.

Scope

Combining Packaged Facts’ extensive monitoring of the food and beverage market with proprietary surveys, U.S. Beverage Market Outlook 2023 is the go-to source for a complete understanding of the U.S. packaged beverage market. This broad-based report evaluates current trends and future directions for marketing and retailing, along with consumer patterns across the food market.

U.S. Beverage Market Outlook 2023 focuses on the market for selected packaged beverage products sold to consumers in the United States through retail channels. All retail distribution channels are covered, including supermarkets and grocery stores, mass merchandisers and supercenters, warehouse clubs, specialty food stores, health/natural food stores, convenience stores, drugstores, dollar stores, vending machines, and direct sales channels such as online and mail order. Market size data are provided at the retail sales level for 2017-2022 and projections are provided for 2023-2027.

This report also examines marketing trends and product innovations as well as surveys retail channel trends and provides data-driven discussions of consumer trends and motivations.

Report Methodology

The information contained in U.S. Beverage Market Outlook 2022 was developed from primary and secondary research sources.

Primary research included consultation with industry sources and visits to retail stores. Primary research also includes national online consumer polls of U.S. adult consumers (age 18+) conducted on an ongoing basis by Packaged Facts to analyze purchasing patterns and attitudes with regard to food and beverage preferences. Supplementing Packaged Facts’ exclusive survey is an extensive analysis of MRI-Simmons’ National Consumer Study, which is based on approximately 25,000 adult respondents surveyed annually.

Secondary research entailed gathering data from relevant trade, business, and government sources, as well as company promotional literature and annual reports. Estimates of market size and company performance are based on various sources, including reported revenues of product manufacturers and retailers, relevant publications, and other market research sources. The analysis in this report also draws, as a background source, on retail sales tracking data as available from Circana (formerly known as IRI) and Nielsen (for mass-market channels), and SPINS (for the natural channel).

This report contains dozens of numerical tables and charts, as well as numerous product photographs. Our estimates of market size and company performance are based on various sources including reported revenues of product manufacturers and retailers, relevant publications, and other market research sources. The analysis in this report also draws, as a background source, on retail sales tracking data from mass market and specialty channels.