Because the category is still so young, with around 98% of non-alcoholic brands under five years old, there hasn’t been enough time for basic price brackets to form which consumers can understand. It’s been easy for some producers to create super-cheap liquids of lower quality and sell for a high margin, which in turn makes for a poor first experience with people feeling cheated and potentially put off the category altogether.
When we first launched Seedlip in the same price bracket as most premium gin brands there was some backlash and misunderstanding. There seems to be a face value assumption that non-alcoholic spirits should be much cheaper because of the lack of duty tax. What isn’t considered is the amount of technical work that goes into creating quality spirits alternatives, the cost and extra amount of the raw materials and the scale at which the supply chain is working with [much smaller than alcohol producers]. This is a fairly laborious explanation i have given many times at events and samplings, it can get quite technical and most people aren’t that interested! The on-trade on the other hand plays a brilliant trial role for the non-alcoholic sector, because it gives consumers an opportunity to try in context and with a bartender or server to explain.
I also think there’s a premium attached to smaller categories such as non-alcoholic spirits because they don’t have the same economies of scale that major producers have. If you take electric cars as an example, they’ve held a premium over regular combustion engines because of a similar issue with economies of scale, but this is starting to change as the technology and supply chains become more accessible.
I’m not saying that non-alcoholic spirits should be priced the same as alcoholic ones, but they certainly shouldn’t be down at the level of soft drinks. If you look at the non-alcoholic alternatives of established brands, they’re cheaper than the alcoholic version, but not much. They are cheaper because there’s an immediate reference point, the trademark.
I think there will be a tipping point as more premium quality brands hit the market and i am encouraged that there is a very exciting premium plus tier of brands now available creating more widespread trust, more education and understanding of why these non-alcoholic liquids are worth it. The age of craft non-alc has properly arrived and I am certainly not giving up explaining why my new brands seasn cocktail bitters and Sylva aged non-alcoholic spirits cost what they cost as there’s nothing better than when people taste them and see the value.
Ben Branson founded the world’s first non-alcoholic spirit brand, Seedlip, in 2015 and three years later Diageo bought the majority share. Since then, Branson has launched Seasn cocktail bitters and runs a successful charity podcast about neurodivergence called The Hidden 20%. His most recent project, Sylva, uses advanced technology to create the effects of wood ageing on non-alcoholic spirits.
