The market for non-alcoholic beer, wine and canned mixed drinks is growing rapidly. Some researchers believe there should be an age limit for purchasing them.
Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun/TNS/Getty Images
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Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun/TNS/Getty Images
Darryl Collins owns Hopscotch, a zero-proof bottle store in Baltimore, Maryland, that sells more than 200 varieties of non-alcoholic spirits, beer, wine and canned cocktails.
He opened the store in August 2023 to tap into the booming adult non-alcoholic beverage market. These drinks contain less than 0.5% alcohol by volume (ABV) and are suitable for adults who want to reduce their drinking, avoid hangovers or prevent other adverse health effects of alcohol.
“Every day people are buying bottles [non-alcoholic] Wine — that’s our biggest seller,” Collins said. “Other than that, it’s going to be what we call ready-to-drink canned beverages, like canned cocktails.
The emerging beverage category has grown steadily over the past few years and got a major boost during the pandemic; it’s now worth more than $500 million annually in the U.S., according to the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association, an industry trade group.
Since these drinks contain virtually no alcohol, they can be sold to essentially anyone, anywhere; they are stocked on grocery and convenience store shelves across the country and can be purchased online. But Collins doesn’t sell to anyone under 18 at the store, and he checks IDs to enforce that rule.
“Can a nine-year-old come into your store and buy a non-alcoholic Corona if there’s no minimum age? To me, I don’t want that perception,” Collins said.
Collins sets his own age limit, which he can set as he pleases because in Maryland – like most states – there are no state age limits on who can purchase adult non-alcoholic beverages.
Now some health researchers are calling for clear, consistent age limits on non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits, likening them to candy cigarettes.
“I think these products have the potential to be a gateway product to drinking,” said Molly Bowdring, a clinical psychologist and researcher at Stanford University’s Center for Prevention Research, who co-authored a July 8 review in Science . JAMA Pediatrics on this topic.
“There are a lot of cues in non-alcoholic beverages that are similar to alcoholic beverages,” such as their taste and smell, and provide the cultural experience of sipping from a beer can or a fancy glass, Baldrin said. “In addition, many full-strength alcohol manufacturers are now producing non-alcoholic products, so their brands are on these products. [non-alcoholic] drinks. This may lead to increased familiarity, which increases the likelihood of purchasing alcohol products from that producer in the future,” she said.
To figure out which states, if any, had restricted the sale of adult non-alcoholic beverages, Baldrin called every state alcohol regulator and health department in the country, as well as some food regulators. She found that 39 states do not have statewide policies, and those that do have policies are inconsistent — for example, Michigan restricts the sale of non-alcoholic beer to those 18 and older but restricts the sale of non-alcoholic wine or There is no such policy for spirits.
“Some entities have emphasized that individual retailers can choose ID if they want, but it really comes down to their discretion,” Baldrin said. “In general, there are no restrictions on that. So that seems to be an area where we’re hoping Gaps should be filled as quickly as possible to address potential public health issues.
So far, there’s no evidence that the boom in zero-proof drinks is causing kids in the U.S. to drink, but Baldrin sees the recent example of e-cigarettes as a cautionary tale. “Tobacco use has really been declining in recent generations,” she said, “and then there was this huge marketing push for e-cigarettes, which led to an increase in tobacco use.”
Baldrin believes there should be laws in place to address the issue regarding non-alcoholic wines and spirits. “If we allow the marketing of non-alcoholic beverages among children, will that lead to increased drinking in this generation? We don’t want to wait to see if that happens,” she said.
While Salazar, president of the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association, agrees that children shouldn’t drink these products, he doesn’t think the government needs to be involved. “We don’t want any regulation to impact accessibility and cause the brands that produce these products to spend additional resources,” he said.
He noted that the expanding availability of zero-proof adult beverages could help those trying to cut back on alcohol for health reasons.
Salazar said the nascent beverage industry could focus its marketing efforts on adults through advertising and store layouts. “When you go into a retail store, Whole Foods or Kroger, you see a group of these products, usually next to alcoholic beverages, [offered] as an alternative,” he said. “It’s very clear who they are marketed to and what they are used for.”
He pointed out that some sellers, such as the chain Target, already allow these drinks to be purchased with credit cards. Collins, who owns an 18+ liquor store in Maryland, agrees. As an industry, “we have to self-regulate because if we don’t self-regulate and self-regulate, the government will,” Collins said.
