What is The Future of Drinking? Designing Drinks in a World Where Experience Trumps ABV #25

0:05Welcome back to Yumi and CPG, the podcast where we cut through the noise and get practical about what really drives growth. I'm Jamie Holton from Haines and today we're talking about the big one, the future of drinking and almost by proxy, the future of socialising. this isn't just about less alcohol less moderation it's about i guess how the act of socializing itself is changing it's kind of being redesigned and i guess it feels completely different to what it did even a few years ago or is it changing as much as we think it is we know the headlines say it is but we're going to try and dig in a little bit to what's going beyond the headlines and hopefully do some myth busting along the way with some great data as well.

0:48It feels different because you've got things like buzz ball, mocktails, functional sodas, beers, all on the same table, right? You've got them all speaking the same language, the same codes, the same semiotics, and all kind of trying to tap into similar moments of connection. So the boundaries have really blurred between alcohol, wellness, social life, all of that stuff. There's a lot to unpick and it's reshaped how brands need to think, which is kind of what we're here for. I've got three brilliant people to help me unpack it. Ine Ermgassen, co-founder of Bativo, reimagining what adult drinking can feel like.

1:24Nice to have you. Thank you. Laura Willoughby, founder of Club Soda, pioneer in mindful drinking and modern social rituals and potentially our first MBE we've ever had on the show. Is that right? I don't know. I don't know who else you've had on the show. Fair enough. and Luis Osario, head of consumer insights at IWSR, bringing the global data, the trends, and maybe some of that myth busting to the table. So I guess what are we asking today, right? What does it even mean to go for a drink in 2025? What replaces rounds and pubs and pints when everything feels kind of on demand and personal and bespoke and portable to a certain extent?

2:00And how can brands, and this is the big question, how can brands create meaning in a culture where that kind of connection has started to look pretty different. So let's get into it. The data tells a certain story, right? In the UK, alcohol frequency is down 12 % since 2019. The US is similar. Adults who drink have dropped from 72 % to 62 % over the last 20 years. But here's a bit of a twist. Gen Z participation is rising within alcohol from 46 % in 2023 to 70 % in 2025. Now, that's obviously driven by as more consumers reach the drinking age. but even in that small portion that is rising as well luis that is your iwsr data what's going on yes so those numbers reflect the consumption in the us so it's 46 of all and gen z's in the us in 2023 were drinking alcohol and by drinking alcohol i mean drink at least once in the past six months can be a beer can be wine can be spirits at least one drink over the past six months of qualifying to being in the participation rate.

3:04And what we've seen is that now in 2025, that value is up to 70. So it's quite significant. The same happening across the globe. So UK 66 to 76, for instance, in Australia, 61 to 83. So that sounds a bit counterintuitive because we were all believing that the Gen Zs were fundamentally different than the previous generations. So we all probably trusted that they will never come back to alcohol. And actually, it doesn't look like they abandoned alcohol completely. Now, this doesn't reflect volume consumption. So it reflects participation rate. So it's very important. So it doesn't mean that they are drinking more alcohol per Gen Z.

3:47What's most interesting about this statistic is how it correlates with the purchasing power. So now in 2025, the oldest Gen Z will be, I believe, 28 years old. And in 2023, it was 26 years old. So this is a critical moment in life to start having the ability to pay for more things, including alcohol bath. So it really tells us that, yes, while the Gen Zs are different, of course, every generation is different because it's a different world, economic moderation seems to have been the main cause for the client. For the shift, yeah. And I think we'll get onto that in a moment because I think it's a really important point to work out.

4:24What are some of the drivers to understand what's going on? Emma, you've obviously created a brilliant proposition in Bativo that taps into the change we're talking about. What's your view? What's your overview of this shift, this change? I mean, I think it's interesting. I think the fact that it's about kind of drinking, you know, one drink every six months is for me the kind of clincher because I think a lot of the change isn't driven by like total, teetotal behavior it's actually about moderation and people kind of pulling back and for me like that's what drives the volume and the excitement and the change within the non-alcoholic space it's actually not sort of the sober audiences yes of course they exist but when you look at the growth i think it's 95 percent of people that are drinking a non-alcoholic drinks also drinking alcohol mostly at least for bativo that is true and actually recent studies have showed that as well i mean for me it's it's a sort of a tricky one because my thought around all of it is just that culture shifts all the time we had this sort of revolution in food you know you know a few years ago suddenly the whole food revolution exploded people wanted different types of food from different cultures and different types of ingredients and different flavors and nuances and that hasn't happened in drinks yet and i feel like you know there's so many other cultural factors at play which aren't just about alcohol not alcohol which is that people are looking for really interesting new experiences and flavors and tastes and drinks are now becoming available to them that allow them to have that experience.

5:47So for me, a lot of talk around the changes in drinks isn't just about ABV or not ABV. A lot of it for me is about this move towards a sort of ABV agnostic future almost, where it's about having a repertoire of like really high quality, delicious liquids that have very different flavor profiles, very different techniques, very different experiences built around them and people having a hunger for that. and in that world the abv kind of question is obviously part of it but it's not the whole thing it's about kind of diversity of experience and you see that in the coffee shops you see that in kfc launching its quetch stuff um you also see it in cakes right because if you told me there'd been cake shops open um till after midnight in the west end when i first moved to london i would have thought that was hilarious now we all know sugar's not great for us we're trying to cut it down but it has its place in the treat moment and people are going for a really lovely cake so you're right it's all about moderation it's not about cutting everything out it's about moderation and then when you do moderate it's getting the best possible thing you can so the best looking dessert or if you are drinking people are trading up to their their best alcohol that maybe costs a bit more but is the thing that they like the most and then they're cutting out all of the stuff that was a bit incidental and not very nice so it's a shift around quality experiences as well as about alcohol not being the star of the show.

7:08How did we get here? Well, interesting. When I started Club Soda 10 years ago, it was still a point in time when if you asked for an alcohol-free beer in the pub, there was one option. It was in the furthest away fridge and the bartender would probably go, oh, what? You want to say non-iconic like water? And we have moved really, really quickly into a situation where people are very accepting of other people's choices around diet and lifestyle and that's been driven by the fact that there's been product on the market so yes there has been a driver for brands and big brands like Heineken to produce something to meet that demand that they saw was coming over the hill but then because it's there it's driven consumer spending and and a participation but it's also been driven by taste people wouldn't keep going back to these products if they tasted really horrible and that comes back to Emma's point that it's about experience.

8:00People want a really lovely thing in the right time, in the right place for the right experience. Whether it's got alcohol in or not is not as important as it used to be. But the driver here is economic. Yes. So that's what the data is telling us. Now, in terms of alcohol, of course. But I totally agree because what you've been observing is because you have the first moment of moderation where alcohol companies created no alcohol versions of the same category, right? And after that, you have a second wave where we have all of the functional beverage, things with attributes that sort of mimic what alcohol would potentially, you know, what we would feel if you drink alcohol.

8:40And I think the adjacent, the functionality, it really blurred the line between no alcohol versions of alcohol beverage. So suddenly you have this whole sort of drinks that people choose from and alcohol competing with functional waters and all sorts of things. that it would be perhaps a bit alien to think about 10 years ago. There's a hypothesis, isn't there, that younger consumers, Gen Z in particular, have not learned the habits of the pub or having a pint of beer. And therefore, non-alc versions of beer has a kind of limited amount of volume that it can grow because younger consumers, why would they drink a non-alc beverage if they're not drinking the alcoholic version?

9:22Do you buy into that? Are we seeing a kind of plateauing of the non-alc beer? It's very good because the typical consumer of no alcohol is the consumer that drinks alcohol, but that will choose to moderate on specific occasions. And actually what no alcohol beer especially allowed was for these people to participate in occasions that probably would have gone home because they didn't want to drink a pint with alcohol beer. So that in a way it's opened a lot these occasions and brought some people to alcohol, which is very interesting. Every category has got its own little story and beer is a really interesting one.

9:56First of all the idea that drinking an alcohol-free beer makes you want to drink alcohol is a rumour we need to definitely scotch because it's alcohol that makes you want to drink alcohol and it's really important when we come to the future of lobbying in this space that that's understood. But beer is amazing right because once you take alcohol out of beer it's one of the healthiest things you can drink. So you talk about the growth of functional, actually alcohol-free beer is a functional drink. It's you know not an ultra-processed food, it's low in calorie it's four ingredients it's naturally sugar-free full of vitamin b12 and rehydrating so it becomes something that can spread across occasions and take from the soda category just as much as it may you know replace beer and so people are looking for those natural things that will be of health benefit and actually same for bativo right you're naturally low in sugar because of the apple cider vinegar and the way that you steep the ingredients it's a naturally produced product So it's got a place in everyone's diet for all sorts of times of day.

10:55And I think that's where we begin to see the blurring of the lines, where functional drinks that you've been talking about will begin to spread across occasions. So, you know, that can of good raise isn't just for lunchtime. It's also being used for cocktails in the evening. And we'll see the supermarkets begin to look at occasion and need state rather than here's beer, here's wine, here's soda. Yeah, I think that's really important. Do you think, you know, just thinking about beer, and we'll go on to spirits, again, the data suggests that Gen Z, younger consumers are turning away from beer, right?

11:27That's what the data suggests. It doesn't look good on Instagram. Why is it? Why does that? Because it doesn't look good on Instagram. It's just factual. It's less exciting than a beautiful cocktail, you know, so it doesn't look that way. So it's an image thing. So it's an image thing, but also I don't think it's totally true. I think what will happen is taste in beer will change. So that Radler style will start coming through. You've got a generation of young people that have been brought up drinking, eating sweet and sour sweets. So that's sour notes, cherry. They're going for peach now. These are clearly a group of people that never got really drunk on Archer schnapps when they were a teenager.

12:04So, you know, you've got different flavor profiles coming through that might be slightly sweeter. So I think beer does have a place and we're still seeing it being used a lot. But once you add in the fact that it's functional, then it's got a far greater reach. I mean, for me, actually, like it is the brands are outside of spirits, which maybe are sort of have the biggest danger from young people in terms of like losing their engagement. And that's because, you know, a lot of the younger people who aren't drinking and that is the generation are drinking less, haven't got the same relationship with the big brands that we did when we were growing up.

12:34and I think the danger is that we assume that or the big kind of the big you know whatever Diageos, Bacalli's etc assume that a zero percent version of their brands is going to be enough to engage a generation that is drinking less and the reality is they haven't got that same emotional engagement with it they didn't grow up with it they haven't got the years of you know getting into their brains and telling them it's a lifestyle brand although it's really interesting and actually it's the new brands that are born within the same generation as them which they kind of grew up with that will be the ones that will resonate with them as they get older and also because alcohol is not allowed on social media in the same way so you know alcohol free brands have managed to coin that space but gordon zero because it shares branding with its parent um has huge numbers of restrictions on it so whilst they might have a product on the market um they can't talk about it in the same way and those restrictions will keep coming i mean you made a really good point there about insurgent brands smaller brands being able to connect with younger consumers and perhaps better than some of their kind of bigger counterparts.

13:35Why is that? And just unpicking that from a brand perspective, Bativo, for instance, it feels culturally attuned. It feels connected to what consumers want. How have you been able to do that where, you know, clearly the likes of Diageo Bacardi has struggled? I mean, that's a multi-layered answer. That's always a startup versus big business discussion. I think one of the key things that for me is, and you know, this is something that Laura might have something to say and you might disagree with me on this, but I think one of the things that for me, so my background is brand building. And I think one of the things for me that I've always found challenging about the non-alcoholic space and particularly the non-alcoholic spirit is that there's a lack of authentic stories.

14:21and what I mean by that is when I worked in premium whiskeys or premium gins whatever might be in my past life like it was the stories of like the founder or the processes or the place or the ingredients and that those kind of stories which you're able to kind of put out there as kind of authentic stories for consumers to to kind of build emotional engagement around and for me I think what's lacking in the non-alcoholic space in general is there's a lack of like makers, there's a lack of like super craft that people can show. You know, a lot of it is still outsourced to factories or fragrance houses, particularly from the big brands.

14:55And there's, you know, there's a lack of, look, this is where we make it. This is what goes into it. Like pulling back the curtain and showing kind of what goes into it. And that means that there aren't those kind of emotional stories that a lot of consumers can buy into and feel really kind of emotional about. And for me, small brands are able to show, look, for us, for example, my co-founder, Sam, he hand makes every bottle on Lanark Farm. Lanark Farm is a place in Hertfordshire. There's like multiple other cottage industries on the farm. We take trade there. We take consumers there. And they're able to really kind of buy into those authentic stories.

15:24And for me, the one thing that is still lacking from our space are those authentic stories. And I think when you do have those craft credentials and that ability to kind of pull back the curtain and show people those parts, that's really engaging, particularly for young people, because for them, transparency and authenticity is even more important in our generation, because they've been brought up, as Laura said, in this whole world of show me everything, like take me behind the scenes, like, you know, what's going on. It's very interesting. We did a very big project a while ago now, which was the future of Scotch, and it was around why aren't young consumers drinking Scottish whiskey?

15:59And a big part of that was they felt like they wanted to own their own rituals and wanted to own their own kind of knowledge around that certain drinks that they drunk, and it felt like whiskey was owned by another generation. and that's exactly what you're saying right those brilliant Scottish whiskeys have these amazing craft stories and provenance stories etc but if you look at non-alc some of them feel a bit scientific don't they because a lot of them has almost propositioned as we've taken that out 100 % and that generation like they want to they want to be taken someone be like this is who makes it this is what goes into it like come into our world like let's show you it you know this is why it costs so much you can actually see why it costs so much and if actually you're not able to show them that and it's just a bottle and a liquid that's been made somewhere that they don't understand how it's made or what goes into or where it's made that for a generation that is absolutely used to hyper transparency is very difficult i think to to grasp and so you know i think my advice to sort of well for non-alcoholic drinks what we need to do more of is to show people what goes into it and the actual craft around it because there is so much within the new generation of nil-alcoholic drinks which laura knows more than anyone yeah laura what do you think well if you think about it we're at really early days in the sector right so this um you know when i set up club soda i didn't realize that people were already cutting down drinking can you just give us 30 seconds what club soda is oh well i guess what we're best the best way describe this as we're an advocacy movement for um low and no alcohol drinks and that's because i set up club soda to help people change their drinking we discovered that there wasn't anything for them to drink 10 years ago so we did a big report called nudging pubs back in 2015 where we started talking about this we identified there were no drinks on the market then when they started to arrive we did the festival um and now the shop and um i've got a campaigning background so i also started to look at where all the legislative hurdles were and where all the changes in society need to happen the way that hospitality works or the way that we do things through distribution that get in the way of greater adoption for me i want to make mindful drinking easier for everybody and so it's not about taking alcohol away it's about introducing choice and therefore basically we're leaning into one very particular behavior change technique that helps people reduce how much alcohol they drink which is swapping an alcoholic drink for an alcohol-free one or for that matter a mid-strength one so we also coordinate the mid-strength collective so they're all part of that same um consumer behavior and i'm really interested in how there are roadblocks in the way for brands like imma's because you know hospitality has always worked this way and it just doesn't have room to think about it or that sort of thing or that the government has um screwed up the labeling um and descriptor stuff time and time again which makes things really difficult.

18:50So I like that advocacy piece because I believe that's where change happens. Nice. Okay. And you've made a few points there about choice, which is really interesting. Again, looking at, Louise, your data, I think 61 % of younger generations said they practice intermittent abstinence versus 39 % of the general population, right? And that is a kind of point about choice for us. I think also I saw some, from a data perspective as well, the variety of drinks in any given bar, right? So that's increased. And what you might then see is you might see a group of four or five people and they all have different drinks, right?

19:28They might have an Aperol, a Mocktail, a non-out beer, a rosé, a trip, whatever. You didn't see that four or five years ago. Is that what you're talking about, almost kind of individual choice? Yeah, and because more customers are looking at menus before they go to a venue. Yeah. because and if they're going out in a group they will look at a venue in advance to check it's got a vegan option for their vegan friend maybe a gluten-free option for their gluten-free friend an alcohol-free option for their alcohol-free friend all the venues that are doing best with alcohol-free tell us it has increased their group bookings particularly around christmas for example so people are more mindful that they want everybody in their group to have a good time they don't it's not like when we were we were younger where you know you just went to the pub and that was it.

20:11It was vertical drinking. And you couldn't even, like when I was a teenager and beyond, you wouldn't even be able to get food in a pub. You wouldn't go to a pub now and then not be an interesting food offer. So people are really keen that they want everybody to have a good time in their group and they will check in advance. And so if you don't have that choice front and centre and show that you're going to give them an equality of experience, and that's what I'm always after, Coke from a hose is not fun night out in anybody's book. You want to give them an equality of experience And that's what they're looking for.

20:42And so when you speak to Sexy Fish, they will tell you 40 % of their sales of alcohol, of cocktails are alcohol free, right? And we're going to come back to what might be a London bubble in a moment. Yeah. But we, just on that as well, because I think the whole premise of, so for me, when I look at the, I guess what frustrates me about the non-alcoholic movement in general, or the way that we talk about drinking is there still are these kind of forced tribes. It's like the moderators, the teetotalers, like the abstainers, like whatever it might be. There are so many kind of ways in which we talk about drinkers, non-drinkers, moderators, etc.

21:17Segments. And actually, to Laura's point, I think the most important thing is inclusivity and its choice. And actually with Bativo, our whole brand and the strategy and what I created it around was based around that concept. Because our dream isn't to have a Bativo on the table and like drinkers are drinking alcohol and everyone else is drinking Bativo. it's that there's a bativo on the table and everyone's drinking it but some with alcohol and some without alcohol so the kind of proposition behind bativo is that you can drink it with or without alcohol like 25 of our customers drink it with alcohol in the homes they use it with gin or they use it with you know mescal etc so for me like you know that is going a step further and being like actually everyone can be drinking the same thing some without alcohol some without alcohol there's gonna be no discussion around like you know oh what are they doing are they drinking they're not drinking which is still such a barrier it is difficult because um words like sober have got very defined meaning and um of clear identity for some people but when you come to moderation you've got a whole host of behaviors that include some people who will just take three nights off a week from drinking all the way through to people i know like my partner who might have half a craft beer a week to some people who are alcohol free by default but might just have something to drink during special occasions or when it's offered and so the moderators are not just one homogenous group with one behavior it there's a lot of stuff going on and people are making those decisions based on other things going on in their lives so i always say that what hospitality forgets is that people are using now part of their brain that spends a fortune in holland and barrett as well they're going right i've spent a load of money on a gym i've brought all these supplements to make myself healthier i've got all those sorts of things now tonight is a night where I want to be healthier and therefore I'm going to make this decision about this drink using the decision matrix that I would use when I go to a health food shop rather than the decision matrix I use when I know I'm going to go out clubbing and drink a bit too much.

23:07Yeah, yeah. And it opens up, you know, what's your competitive set, right? Like it's quite interesting. Just help me get to a cultural place here, right? Let's go up top. What does that choice stuff does that say something about like how individualism is is shifting because you know when when yeah I think you you just said it Laura but you know 10 years ago particularly if you're a bloke you go to the pub and you you don't have a choice or you have to have a beer you know that that's what was the kind of social norms and you had to kind of push against that if you didn't want to do that and there were kind of social structures and social norms they are are dissipating around what you should be drinking and you can choose what you want for and what works for you that day that moment that occasion is that what we're seeing it's are we seeing a kind of fundamental shift in kind of individualism to say well today I will not drink alcohol because tomorrow I've got the gym or or whatever and the kind of choice paradox is almost being driven by this shift in individualism a shift in choice yeah i mean it's interesting because i think that one way of looking about it and the way you're describing it is people going like it's a non-alcoholic drinking or a alcoholic drinking like choice and that's the kind of main thing they're thinking about for me where we're heading is not actually that that that thought that thought process it's like i come back from work and i don't go oh i want a glass of wine oh damn it i'm gonna have a i'll come back from work and i'm like god i really want a bitivo and i think for me that's where things are heading it's less about oh this is my non-drinking night this is my drinking night this is my drinking night and it's much more like what do i really fancy what quality drink do i really want in this moment when i'm in the pub and i think one of the things that sort of bothers me and i think laura you work quite a lot towards this as well is from from what i understand is in menus for example it's always like non-alcoholic here and alcoholic over here and it doesn't have to be that way right i think you can have a zero percent option in the aperitif section or whatever it might be so that people aren't like you know aren't going okay this is a non-drinking moment so i have to go to the non-drinking part of the section i think they should just be like wow i want something delicious look down the menu these things are delicious that one happens not to have booze don't care whatever it's delicious and i think for me that's that for me is is the shift that will be happening is that kind of combination of stuff and people it'll take a while because people at the end of the day when you go into a venue for most people and and particularly when you're outside of urban areas your assumption is is that choice is terrible you're going to have a choice of a coke or maybe a j2o and if you're lucky they've made it adult but put glitter in it um then i don't understand um so um so your expectations are already really low so you have to work hard to show that you've thought about them as a customer yeah and put it um in a separate space so that people understand and people know because we're still at really really early days of this being a sector.

26:01But, you know, we also have to know that alongside all of this is coming the lower ABV products. People's understanding of ABV isn't particularly good, but they do know they want things lower in strength. We see that in wine and we see that in cocktails. And so you can go to venues now and they will have a mid-strength cocktail list. And so we sort of need to present it to the consumer and say, look, we know that you're trying to drink a bit less, so we now have these options for you. But because we know that you're not expecting them because expectations of hospitality are low, we've presented them to you.

26:31And for me, that's really important because the reason why I wanted to set up Club Zone was I didn't want people to absent themselves from a pub or bar if they decided they weren't going to drink. Because assumptions are, in a very Alco-centric country, that if you go into the pub, you're going to have to get smashed or at least have alcohol. And I want us to go, no, it's okay. We're going to keep our pubs alive and thriving and our bars alive and thriving because there's something for everybody and the reason to come through the door. Yeah, I think that's very powerful. For example, for the mid-strength cocktail I'm talking about, would you put that in a mid-strength section?

27:01Because for me, that would go with cocktails and it's just an option there. Yeah, I think it can depend. I think, you know, if you look at Sexy Fish, they do the same cocktail, but three ways of different strength. You do need to guide the consumer. They don't really understand ABV. So when I told somebody the strength of a Negroni the other day, they nearly fell off their chair. And I said, it's around 40%. It's 40 % because you've got three 40 % proof spirits in it. So half of your drink is made up of alcohol and then it's a short drink as well. So people are beginning to understand a little bit more.

27:34And in the same way as they're looking at nutrition on the back of all sorts of packets and labels, they will begin to do that with alcohol. Now, and also nutrition labeling is likely to come on the back of alcohol, which alcohol free has to do anyway. But that is surely going to come very soon. So we'll end up with having a more informed consumer. A couple of things I want to touch on. I think you said, you know, we're at the start of this movement. It's still small globally. It's only 1 to 1.5%, right, versus alcohol. And I think it's meant to get to 5%, 3 to 5 % in 2030. So we're talking pretty small, but a very kind of noisy growth and a noisy kind of minority.

28:11But what's really interesting is when you start to look at occasions, and Luís, you've got some great data on this. We're drinking earlier, aren't we, as a nation in particular? Yes. So that's particularly true in the UK, but in other markets as well. So you see the consumer shifting from the late night drinking into the brunch occasionally. So that's probably the best metaphor. Which is amazing why the government says they want to now allow licensing to be later when the data doesn't show any of that. Don't even get me started on the government. I'm honestly like what they're doing in hospitality is just breaking my heart.

28:46With all the pubs closing as well. So your day says 3 to 4 p.m. is now more popular than 9 to 10 p.m., right? I don't know if it's more popular, but it's increasing in terms of popularity. Why people aren't working at 3 to 4 p.m. is another matter. At home. More of a weekend. Most people still drink at home, so it's quite possible. Let's not get into British productivity. But what does that signal? Brunch, one of the fastest growing moments. I mean, it just sounds like everyone's drinking earlier here. You know, gin with your Weetabuck starting to be normalized. But what's that all telling us?

29:17I mean it's really it's a consequence of everything we're observing right the emergence of the light and fresh you've seen that for the past 15 years with Prosecco and cocktails and all of that Instagram mobile moments so brunch is ideal for that moderation you drink less if you drink during the day than you do during the night it's typically more affordable as well so typically drinks in a club will be more expensive than drinks in that setting so it also goes well along with moderation in terms of purchasing power. And then you see also a fantastic job from the brand owners putting nice value propositions in the market.

29:58You know, the emergence of really nice cocktail experience that were not there maybe five, ten years ago. Like the Spritz craze. It's relatively recent, right? So it really goes well along these lines. So I think the branch is the crystallization of everything we've been observing. It's an experience, right? and and that's what i hear from younger people as well so we talk about moderation i hear them going um okay um i've booked all of these things to do over the weekend i've booked paddleboarding on saturday and i've booked a brunch on sunday so i'm not going to drink too much in the uh you know at night because otherwise i won't get to these things that i've booked you know theater the west end in the uk is the busiest it's ever been it's bigger than broadway and that's because people are turning up to jukebox musicals they're an event they're a night out and people aren't going they go oh i'm too hungover i'm not going to turn up to this thing that i've booked young people want to turn up to the thing that they've paid for because they paid for it so they're price sensitive and i think also even like on a broader sense like you know as the role of alcohol for some people becomes less important actually what we're seeing is in hospitality is the rise of like experience-led venues right like all the data is showing like where young people are able to actually kind of do something or connect around something doesn't necessarily have to be alcohol it can be but it can also be something else and so it's about this whole next generation of kind of hospitality having to think about if there is going to be a behavior change which there is you know and all the evidence shows it what is what are we doing is hospitality or what are the venues doing to evolve and make sure that they're creating something which talks for younger consumer because it's all very well for us to be like the government's you know really like you know the government is you know the vat needs to be slashed you know there needs to be a minister of hospitality like you know everyone is you know struggling to keep the lights on but at the same time we also need to innovate and create experiences that young people want to want to use so they continue going to the pub and they continue going to those spaces 100 because you mentioned before need states i love need states because i think it defines everything that's that ends up happening in markets i think it's fair to say that traditionally the need states of alcohol would be all about relaxation, celebration, socializing, connect.

32:07It's still pretty much true. Yeah, relaxation is the best one. It's very alcohol type of need. The original functional ingredient, alcohol. Exactly. It's functionality. It's purest sense. But what we've been seeing, and this is consumer data tracking when we track throughout the years, is the rise of new need states, things like exploration or impress what does this tell about about me to you know my social leader followers or to the friends i'm giving this fancy bottle or even reward so we i think you mentioned get home and like this is my moment i'm going to reward myself you see these people drink less perhaps but then there's these very specific moments they will okay i'm going to treat myself too i think that comes a bit from the pandemic the pandemic really created this we called back then the home premise which is how your house starts being it's it's that sort of music to my ears because when i think about sort of all the thinking that went into the creation of bativa i think you know when alcohol is taking out the picture i think one of the things that you do need to do as a brand and as a product is work harder to create really interesting and like you know experiences around the unboxing around the packaging around the ritual around the drinks making because actually you know particularly in like the sort of spirits world for me spirits and alcohol haven't haven't aren't just about a beer and it's not just you know with beers you sort of you have a beer you drink it you know that that's sort of how the ritual around beers right it's your friendship and hanging out in the pub but with spirits and alcoholic spirits there's so much more to it so there is you're slicing the lemon there's putting the mixer in there's putting you know whatever a little cocktail umbrella if you want to on it and there's so much ritual around it and with in some ways like removing the alcohol from that um you know means that you have to add even more place even more value on the experience and you know every single detail about batiba when we created it was all about demarcating this moment and creating a ritual around it's everything from like undoing the wax to you know the serve being with an orange slice and then mixing it and then you know our occasion which is something we call the yellow hour which is a play on you know that parody of a moment in the golden hour and i think like playing to that idea of you know reward um needs to be dialed up even more in the way that you create the brand and the product experience when there's an absence of alcohol there yeah yeah i i think that's that's interesting and and particularly at home consumption in particular is rising again it's up still significantly post-covid huge driver again is economic right it's expensive to go out but you're starting to see you to your point you're starting to see brands lean in and create those at-home experiences that feel premium, ritualized, all that.

34:47Interesting, just on that, what we're also seeing in the data is a rise of solo drinking. Me time occasion is increasing quite significantly. Why is that? I've seen some data that then you can derive some conclusions, but it's more qualitative. So when you speak to consumers in focus groups and interviews and tells us that it looks like the consumption occasion is becoming more special in a way it's either at home alone or even in a brunch so there's more effort in planning that there'll be a bit more budget available for the for a specific for a specific drink but there's also a bit of a polarization which is those occasions are either very special or very casual at home so not sure about at home in terms of yeah i think for me actually the the reason one of the drivers of kind of more me time occasions is the idea around individualism is I know what I want.

35:44I mean, 100%. I was actually talking to someone about this the other day because I think it's a huge cultural shift, this idea of like, these are my boundaries. I'm doing this for me. Don't make me do something I don't want to do. And I think like what we're seeing in a lot of really young people when we talk to them are, you know, there's a lot of, even if you look at social media, right, there's a lot of, you know, it's okay to say no. Or like, you know, if your friends want you to come out, like respect your own boundaries, like listen to your body, listen to your brain, like what do you want to do?

36:10And that's created this culture, which is a lot more around me times, really, really important. And actually having boundaries and like, you know, leaving other people to it and taking time for myself is really important. We come from a country where we've been taught to stay at things we're not enjoying by drinking. And that's sort of going very quickly. It's bonkers, right? You should just go home and sort of get drunk. But I do worry that people might be drinking at home alone alcohol. That sets some little alarm bells for me as well. and people dealing with feeling lonely because people do feel quite isolated in a very tech world.