Scots soft drinks fans show their independent spirit

WHETHER we call it ginger, juice or a bottle of skoosh, Brits, and especially Scots, are ensuring that the soft drinks category continues to sparkle, according to the take-home food and drink research from analyst Kantar Worldpanel.

The take-home soft drinks market is now worth £4.3m across GB. That means the category – covering everything from American cream soda through cola and energy drinks to alternatives to wine for ladies who lunch – now accounts for 4% of all take-home grocery sales.
Scots spend £471m on soft drinks to enjoy at home. That’s growth of 2.8% a year, which is slightly behind the GB average of 3.6%. The average GB shopper now spends £168 over the year on soft drinks – up £5 a head on the preceding year.

While soft drinks growth in Scotland may be slower than across the whole of GB, overall Scottish per person spend remains significantly higher. The average Scottish shopper spends around £17 more a year than the typical GB shopper on the products.
Thanks to national favourites, such as Irn-Bru, the expenditure pattern in the category is very different in Scotland compared to the rest of GB. For example, some 85% of Scottish shoppers buying soft drinks look beyond lemonade and cola. That does not mean that cola is the Cinderella of Scottish fixtures, however: 78% of Scots will buy cola over the course of a year, compared to 73% across GB as a whole.
Scots’ shopping channels differ from their GB neighbours. The big four supermarkets dominate sales but c-stores and discounters play a significant role. Some 4% more Scottish shoppers than is the case in the rest of Britain buy soft drinks for take-home use in independents and symbol stores. And 6% more Scottish shoppers buy soft drinks in Aldi and Lidl.