Flavours and fragrances Drink & thrive
As more drinkers consider low or no-alcohol alternatives, brewers and distillers are scrambling to secure the right flavour profiles. As it stands, the majority of people aren’t convinced yet, but innovators are rushing ahead regardless, experimenting with different ingredients, flavour profiles and production methods – with some players equally focusing on sustainability. Dan Cave speaks to Rohan Radhakrishnan, co-founder of Quarter; and Professor Sotirios Kampranis, founder at EvodiaBio, to get the lowdown on the booze-free market.
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n the 1920s, America was a booze-soaked place. At least that is the impression one gets reading Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The novel depicts the bacchanalia of the American Jazz Age, a period defined by increased freedom of expression through literature, art, dancing – and, of course, drinking. Though prohibition certainly played a role across this decade, as the reader follows Fitzgerald’s protagonist throughout the book they will find themself soaked by cold ales on warm summer days, gin rickeys, highballs and champagne served in “glasses bigger than finger bowls.” Abstinent, Gatsby and his friends were not.
Fast forward a hundred years and the world has changed considerably. Though 2019 Eurostat data
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
shows that almost one in five Europeans still drink heavily at least once a month, teetotalism (or at least cutting back) is on the rise. Indeed, Mintel market research shows that 60% of British adults either didn’t drink alcohol, or have reduced their intake, over the past 12 months. Booze-free pub visits are also increasingly popular and, as work by Tesco found, drinkers are increasingly reaching for non- alcoholic alternatives at home. Fitzgerald himself might even approve. As he wrote in his canonical work: “It is a great advantage to not drink.”
Booze-free market growth With the freeze on alcohol duty lifted last year, there is evidence to suggest that, in Britain at least, this
Above: Yops has outperformed non- alcoholic beers brewed via traditional methods in official taste-testing, while also providing environmental benefits.
40%
The percentage by which demand for ‘no and low’ beers has soared at Tesco over the past two years. Tesco
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