Sugar is becoming a public enemy.
The global pandemic has prompted major shifts in consumer behavior and daily routines, with an increased focus on health and wellness as individuals seek to prevent or mitigate the risk of disease. Consumers are showing a heightened interest in both their own and others’ health, prompting a shift in consumer behavior and prompting some consumers to invest in food and beverage products that align with their health goals or are perceived as not harmful to their health. The concept of “food as medicine” has emerged as a prominent driver of this shift.
From sugar-free biscuits to sugar-free cola, the “sugar-free” track continues to expand. Some popular beverage brands (particularly energy and sports drinks, juice, and carbonated soft drinks) are considered less healthy than other beverage types due to added sugar/sweeteners and lack of nutritional value. Conversely, other functional beverages such as nutritional shakes and probiotic yogurt drinks are viewed as healthier options. Many beverage manufacturers are reducing or eliminating the content of added sugar to make their products healthier. As the beverage industry collectively “controls sugar”, the sugar-free trend has spread to the field of alcoholic beverages.
The brand of alcoholic beverage also possesses a keen sense of smell. In September 2021, Canteen Spirits, a cocktail brand based in Texas, USA, launched the Canteen Gin Spritz, a sugar-free and sodium-free beverage with a low-calorie content of only 99 kcal per can. In addition, Japan’s Suntory offers a sugar-free, fat-free, and artificial-sweeteners-free product, called “頂極上ZERO”. Similarly, Kirin’s “濃い味” beer is also sugar-free and fat-free and does not contain caramel color.
People are always looking to maximize their gain. They wish to maintain their health but also seek the freedom of feeling tipsy. It seems reasonable to assume that consumers will be attracted to sugar-free beer. Furthermore, as competition in the beer industry intensifies, the sugar-free track provides beer brands with a promising growth direction and a potential source of advantage to beat their competitors.
However, whether sugar-free beer can truly be “sugar-free” is questionable.
According to China’s National Food Safety Standard GB28050, “0 sugar” is defined as a food product with a carbohydrate content of no more than 0.5 grams per 100 grams (or 100 milliliters of liquid food). In other words, beer with a maximum sugar content of 0.5 grams per 100 milliliters can be designated as “0 Sugar Beer.”
However, this is not so simple in beer. During the brewing process, raw materials such as malt are saccharified, and then yeast consumes the sugar in wort to produce alcohol, aldehyde, acid, ester, and carbon dioxide. Following complete fermentation, the remaining sugars are mostly trisaccharides and tetrasaccharides that cannot be absorbed by the human body. In this case, according to the first sugar measurement method in China’s national food safety standard GB 5009.8-2016, beer doesn’t contain fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, and lactose. As a result, trisaccharides and polysaccharides will not be detected or labeled in beer. The concept of “zero sugar” is also supported by this standard.
As a niche alcoholic beverage market, sugar-free beer allows brands to reach new consumers but also presents challenges. One significant challenge in marketing products to consumers is defining and communicating the sugar-free concept and its associated health benefits. In the eyes of most beer consumers, the most important factors when choosing a beer are alcohol content, original wort concentration, and ingredients. The existence of sugar-free options is not something that most beer drinkers consider. After all, whether beer contains sugar is not a significant factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions.
On the other hand, the crowd portrait is relatively straightforward. The core consumer group of sugar-free beer is mostly people who engage in sports and fitness aged 18 to 34. The population coverage is limited, the customer base is narrow, and it is difficult to break through the circle of potential customers, which is a big limitation in the early stage of the development of sugar-free beer. In addition, the consumption scenario of sugar-free beer is also a problem. How to create a consumption scenario for sugar-free beer? How to create functional attributes for healthy ingredients in alcoholic beverages? How to give consumers a reason to buy based on their health pain point in the scenario? Etc.
As global consumption concepts and trends continue to evolve, the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle has become a prevalent phenomenon, presenting a good growth avenue for sugar-free beer. But if sugar-free beer wants to go far and last long, it still needs to find its own way and leave everything to the test of the market.
