Consumer concerns over health and environmental issues have increased during Covid, claims new report

By Fiona Holland  

Increasing consumer concern about health and ethical issues has been an unexpected outcome of the Covid pandemic, and is likely to have a bigger impact than digitsation on the long term future of consumer trends.  

This is according to a new report by the IWSR on behalf of Wine Australia, which identifies growing consumer concern over health, the environment and other social issues, as well as an increase in e-commerce.  

And the wine industry is set to benefit in a number of ways. With the increased focus on climate change and the environment, there will inevitably be a surge in  demand for products that follow more eco-friendly methods of production such as organic, biodynamic and lower intervention niche wines. The study also highlighted the rise of lower and zero per cent alcohol wines, which the IWSR currently describes as “an untapped opportunity”.

Wine Intelligence also believe it is an area of the wine market that is still worth exploring, releasing statistics showing that over a quarter of consumers in Australia, the UK, USA and Canada would all be willing to buy low or non-alcoholic wines.  

Moderation is another ongoing trend which has picked up steam during the pandemic, according to GlobalData. However, Wine Intelligence doesn’t regard this to pose too much of a threat to the wine sector, with a majority of consumers still picking “standard” wine as opposed to limiting the amount they drink to being “smaller amounts and less often.”

The Wine Australia report claims it is younger consumers or those who are “sober-curious” who are driving this trend, with the highest percentage of people moderating their drinking aged under 34.