A consumer desire for sweeter beer has been the catalyst for the growth within the cider category as well as one of the main causes for decline within beer, according to AB InBev.
Speaking at the Cider Trends Summit, hosted by M&C Report’s sister title Publican’s Morning Advertiser, Stella Artois Cidre marketing manager Andy Logan said: “Over a third of beer consumers were asking us for sweeter beers and sweeter alcoholic products. Cider is a solution to this sweet requirement.
“We approached it from a very beer-centric point of view, because that was our universe. And we were looking at a category which has, over the past 10 years, been declining. We had learnt that sweetness was one of the key root causes for this decline.”
Logan added that cider can be “the solution to so many taste preferences, occasions and need states.” But admitted, for AB InBev, “the attraction was that it was solving this sweet issue within the beer market”.
