08 Oct 2014 The whopping global growth of bottled water and tea

Tea is by far the largest of the 24 drinks categories in the 72 country globaldrinks.com database, and saw consumption growth of 62-billion litres between 2008 and 2013.

Bottled water, the second-largest market by volume, increased sales by an even higher 83-billion litres over the five years.

Milk gained the third biggest volume growth of 20-billion litres, followed by coffee on 16-billion litres.

Five other categories all achieved growth of between 10 and 12-billion litres: still drinks with a low fruit content, carbonated soft drinks, beer, fruit drinks with a fruit content between 5% and 25%, and iced tea.

Spirits were the last of the top 10 volume growth categories, which is a very strong performance given their far higher value.

Some observations from researchers Zenith International on www.foodbev.com: 

“When you look in more detail at how the category rankings have altered in the last five years, two changes jump out. The first is that carbonates have slipped behind milk, which has now risen to third place. The second is that coffee has overtaken beer.

“The other observation to highlight is a huge increase in the variety of choice available to consumers today, with many more flavours and blends as well as packs and sweeteners, outlets and delivery options.”

Click on this graphic to enlarge: