CHICAGO -- Just as the convenience-store industry celebrated a record year of sales in 2015, packaged beverages were also hailed for a great year.
“With packaged beverages, we put an awful lot of money in the bank,” said Andy Jones, president and CEO of Sprint Food Stores, Augusta, Ga. “It was our No. 1 category in terms of gross-profit dollars.”
Nonalcohol
In 2015, nonalcohol packaged beverages brought in an average of $9,651 in gross profit dollars per store per month, according to NACS/CSX preliminary data unveiled during the 2016 NACS State of the Industry Summit in Chicago. This comes on average monthly dollar sales of $23,877 per store, second only to cigarettes.
A breakdown of subcategories shows every major segment grew dollar sales, and only sales of carbonated soft drinks were down (-0.7%). Most significant, energy drinks, with 10.1% dollar growth, are on their way to surpassing CSDs in sales within the next three years.
Beer
Beer sales were more of a mixed bag, following a larger trend of consumers being willing to trade up to better-quality products. In 2015, craft beers (micro), imports, superpremiums and flavored malt beverages showed the most growth, while budget, popular and malt-liquor beers declined. Domestic-premium-beer sales, the largest share of convenience-store sales at 50%, inched slightly higher with 1.0% growth (making up 2014’s loss of about 1%) in unit sales and 0.1% in dollar sales (compared to a 1.3% decline in 2014).
“Many consumers are all about craft beer and its origin, but don’t take your eye off the ball,” Jones said. “Premium beer is still the biggest share.”
Overall, beer unit volume sales grew 3.1% in 2015, according to the data.
The category brought in an average of $14,838 per store per month, and it was the third-largest driver of gross-profit dollars at $2,900 per store per month.
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