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"Today's NEW is failing to keep the pace with yesterday's NEW, and what has remained on the shelves year-to-year has continued to contract." That's basic math plaguing the US alc bev biz, the BWC Co explained in monthly client letter today. In 2025, innovation simply isn't providing the boost to the biz it has in recent yrs. Total innovation $$ across all alc bev categories YTD thru mid-Oct dropped 21.6% vs comparable period in 2024 and down almost 28% vs 2023, Bump Williams and co showed. About a $350-mil gap over 2 yrs, per letter based on NielsenIQ off-premise data. The "rapidly shifting landscape" only serves to increase the "need for inventive approaches," note highlights, as "evolving preferences and a proliferation of alternative beverage options only serve to intensify competition." And not all innovation is created equally, per BWC. Gotta consider "the splits between those that are simply chasing trends vs those that are truly looking to generate incrementality," in form of adding shoppers, occasions and/or volume per trip.2,700 Fewer New Items Than 2023 "MORE is not always BETTER," BWC reminds, tho alc bev biz has still seen a sharp drop in number of new items, a clear contributor to lower $$ sales. Co tracked over 6,700 new items in 2023, over 1,000 fewer the following yr and just under 4,000 so far in 2025. New beer items fell from about 3,150 in 2023 to about 2,840 in 2024 to under 2,000 this yr, down over 30% in 1 yr. But big chunk of that is 35% drop in number of new items in craft, which represents an outsized number of new items given local/regional variation, BWC notes. Still new craft items delivered almost 12% of total alc bev innovation $$, well above its actual $$ share (under 11 share of beer $$), behind only spirits RTDs (23%) and FMBs (17%)."Flavored" vs "Traditional" As new RTD entrants in spirits (and to much smaller extent wine) stole the thunder of earlier beer-aligned brands, so-called "flavored" beer innovation $$ fell some 44% from 2023, BWC shows, including big 37% drop vs just last yr. Diminishing returns of innovation in "traditional" beer segments not as pronounced, down just 7% so far this yr and off by 1/4 over 2 yrs.But definition of "flavored" vs "traditional" plays a role here. The former includes RTD segments like FMB, malt/sugar seltzer, canned cocktails and so forth. But flavored beers and spirits still fall into "traditional" category in BWC's analysis. And those entries dominated list of top new "traditional" alc bev items of last 3 yrs, especially among top beer entries. Corona Sunbrew bottled 12 pks ranked #2, followed by Busch Light Peach canned 30 pks and New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Fruit Force 19.2s. Modelo Chelada Fresa Picante single-serve cans ranked #6 among top "traditional" alc bev innovation items since 2023. Biggest new item by a long shot was 750s of Crown Royal Blackberry, intro'd in 2024, again categorized here as "traditional," rather than "flavored."Move just these top flavor-forward options into the "flavored" column and it shifts beer and spirits pictures a bit. Flavored spirits innovation $$ back to down double digits vs last yr, while new flavored beer items down slightly less but still a steep 33%. For "traditional" beer and spirits, declines in innovation $$ become almost identical, down 12-13% in each of last 2 yrs and off same 23.1% since 2023.Mich Ultra Zero a Big Missing X Factor But one more methodological quirk changes picture too. BWC only includes items as "innovation" if they sold fewer than 10 cases in the prior yr. So that excluded 12 pks of Mich Ultra Zero cans, even bigger than Sunbrew bottles this yr, BWC points out. Indeed, if almost entirely incremental Mich Ultra Zero sales were included in $$ contributed by new traditional beer items, it would easily top comparable innovation sales in 2024 and 2023, we estimate.

Innovation Fades Across Bev Alc as Fewer New Items Add Less to Sales Pot, BWC Shows

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