Non-alcoholic and special beers prove popular with Italian consumers

Major Italian retailers reported an uptick in beer sales in terms of both value (+2.7%) and volumes (+1.7%) in the year from November 2017 to November 2018.

Market research conducted by IRI Infoscan confirmed the growth in sales of beer in 33 cl bottles (and smaller sizes) and special beers (+17.1% in volume and +12.6% in value), as well as the increased popularity of non-alcoholic beer, a product that has attracted considerable research efforts in recent years.

The flavoured beer segment continued its decline in 2018 (-11.9% in volume), while economy beers experienced a further fall following the strongly negative performance of recent years.

The out-of-home market is growing (+2.5% in volume and +3.6% in value) and is now worth €1.3 billion (slightly higher than supermarket sales), with a greater preference for special beers compared to home consumption.