UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Current and future trends in the consumption, sale and purchasing of alcohol-free and low-alcohol products in Great Britain, 2014 to 2023

Wilson, Luke B; Stevely, Abigail K; Kersbergen, Inge; McGrane, Ellen; Moore, Esther C; Pryce, Rob E; Brown, Jamie; (2025) Current and future trends in the consumption, sale and purchasing of alcohol-free and low-alcohol products in Great Britain, 2014 to 2023. Addiction , 120 (8) pp. 1655-1665. 10.1111/add.70041. Green open access

[thumbnail of Brown_Addiction - 2025 - Wilson - Current and future trends in the consumption  sale and purchasing of alcohol‐free and.pdf]
Preview
Text
Brown_Addiction - 2025 - Wilson - Current and future trends in the consumption sale and purchasing of alcohol‐free and.pdf

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Background and Aims: The UK Government has committed to reducing alcohol consumption by 2025 through increasing the availability of alcohol-free and low-alcohol (no/lo) drinks. This study estimated current and future trends in key indicators of the availability, sale, purchasing and consumption of no/lo products in Great Britain. // Design: Seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average models of market research data and repeat-cross-sectional survey data on alcohol consumption. // Setting: Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), January 2014–December 2025. // Participants/Measurements: The study used population-level data on no/lo product availability and sales in the on-trade (e.g. bars, pubs, clubs, restaurants), as well as the off-trade (e.g. supermarkets and convenience stores) (2014–2023), continuous household panel data on purchasing (n ≈ 30 000; 2018–2023) and repeat-cross-sectional survey data on consumption (n ≈ 80 000, 2020–2024) to construct monthly time series for seven indicators. It described current trends and forecast them to December 2025. // Findings: All indicators showed increasing trends to 2025. The forecast level of each indicator in December 2025 was: Indicators 1 and 2: Percentage of alcoholic drinks sales volume that is no/lo products: 2.3% (50% Prediction Interval 2.1%–2.9%, off-trade) and 1.0% (50% Prediction Interval 0.8%–1.1%, on-trade); Indicator 3: Percentage of pubs selling draught no/lo products: 6.8% (50% Prediction Interval 6.1%–7.5%); Indicator 4: Percentage of households purchasing off-trade no/lo products but not alcoholic products: 12.3% (50% Prediction Interval 10.9%–13.6%); Indicator 5: Percentage of higher alcohol purchasing households that are increasing off-trade purchasing of no/lo products: 24.3% (50% Prediction Interval 21.3%–30.6%); Indicator 6: Percentage of households increasing off-trade purchasing of no/lo products and decreasing purchasing of alcoholic products: 1.8% (50% Prediction Interval 0.8%–2.8%); Indicator 7: Percentage of risky drinkers using no/lo products in most recent cut-down attempt: 42.4% (50% Prediction Interval 37.2%–53.3%). // Conclusions: Consumption of alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks is increasing in Great Britain but predicted to remain low in 2025 (estimated at 1.0% of on-trade and 2.3% of off-trade alcohol sales volume in servings by the end of 2025). There is some evidence that people are using no/lo drinks in attempts to reduce their alcohol consumption.

Type: Article
Title: Current and future trends in the consumption, sale and purchasing of alcohol-free and low-alcohol products in Great Britain, 2014 to 2023
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/add.70041
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70041
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Alcohol drinking, consumption, forecasting, purchasing, time series analysis, zero-alcohol
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205490
Downloads since deposit
11Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item