What is happening to gin sales in convenience stores?

Gin has grown in popularity in recent years, and the once forgotten G&T has been elevated to mighty status with gin bars, gin festivals, gin distillery tours and gin making experiences to keep us all enthused over the botanical infused refreshments. Of course, this means that people are indulging in making their gin cocktails at home so convenience stores have seen a surge in the amount and variety of gin sold. At the peak in May 2020, monthly gin sales across our estate reached £5.2m.

Riding the crest of the gin wave are increasing numbers of independent distillers launching new variants. The number of different flavoured gins has also encouragingly been on the rise. Flavoured gin’s sales have been strong, challenging sales of standard gin during the lockdown of 2020. In 2019, gin’s share of spirits sales was 9.4%. It rose to 12.2% in 2020, and fell back to 9.4% in 2021.

There was a significant peak in gin’s share of spirit sales in May 2020 when the government ordered all bars, pubs and restaurants to close in the first lockdown but the peak wasn’t seen across all spirits. It seems people got imaginative with their gin cocktails!

On the charts we can see that popularity of gin may be starting to wane as share of total spirit sales is the lowest seen in the last 3 years and Liqueur & Rum are now ahead of Gin in the spirit sales ranking after Vodka and Whisky (3 months to Dec 2021).

We obligingly looked at the different varieties of gin to see which was most popular in convenience stores, flavoured or original. In 2019, it was standard gin which dominated sales with 59% of Total Gin sales.

In January 2019, Flavoured Gin accounted for 33.4% of Total Gin sales. Then, as the distilleries gingerly released more barcodes, flavoured gin was responsible for the upsurging growth of total gin when the country first went into lockdown, accounting for 64.6% of total gin sales in May 2020. Share of Flavoured Gin is back to 40% in January 2022.

In September 2021 sales of gin fell for the first time below those of Rum, suggesting that rum and flavoured rum might be the next big thing, so you might want to read more about Rum Sales in Convenience Stores and get your shelves ready for new beginnings and rumbustious sales!