Party spirit tempered as flat beer sales hit festive trading

In focusing on beers, wines and spirits, you ignore the pretty robust festive figures generated by RTDs and cider, which accounted for £156m of alcohol sales at Christmas.

RTDs, an often overlooked category, achieved a noteworthy 6% increase in value sales in line with the total BWS performance and significantly outpacing beer.

Glass-bottled cider value sales were up by almost a quarter on the same eight-week period the previous year more than four times the growth of the BWS category.

From a WKD perspective, a 12.5% growth in volume during December rounded off another successful year.

If, as your article states, Christmas is still regarded as a way of gauging the category's financial health it would seem apt to cast the net a little wider to see where the true potential lies.

Debs Carter, marketing director, Beverage Brands

[First published on the letters page of The Grocer, 6/2/10]

The Editor responds: Not only are we aware of the importance of cider, we have taken the FT to task for an article that claimed cider sales were in decline!