Good weather, a favourable arrangement of long weekends and the European Football Championship did not help the beer market to recover. The first half of this year brought a further decline in sales of alcoholic beers and only non-alcoholic beers saved the entire market from falling into the red – reported the Association of Employers of the Brewing Industry – Polish Breweries.
According to preliminary data from ZPPP, sales dynamics in the first half of the year hovered around zero compared to the same period last year. Alcoholic beers were in the red (almost -1%), while non-alcoholic beer sales increased by over 16%.
“After the record market decline in 2023, a certain rebound could have been expected, but this did not happen. It turns out that even favorable circumstances did not allow to overcome the weakness of the market, which has been struggling with a downward trend continuously since 2019,” indicated the general director of ZPPP Bartłomiej Morzycki. He added that he sees a positive signal in the clear increase in interest in non-alcoholic beers. “Last year, they did not resist the declines, but in the first half of this year they already recorded a clear increase in sales. This confirms our belief that the trend of consumers looking for an alternative to drinking alcohol is strong and lasting,” added Mokrzycki.
The beer market has shrunk
The beer market has shrunk by around 6 million hectoliters over the past 5 years, with the deepest decline occurring in 2023, when 7 percent, or 2.2 million hectoliters less beer was sold year-on-year. According to the industry, this is a consequence of rising production costs and excise duty increases, which translated into higher average beer prices and reduced demand. The increase in household maintenance costs has also resulted in a reduction in consumer spending, especially on non-essential products, including beer – the ZPPP press release stated.
As the association reported, the industry is also concerned about changes in the turnover of packaging and packaging waste resulting from the implementation of the regulations on the deposit system. “This means the need to adapt to new regulations in the scope of the existing returnable bottle system and to build practically from scratch a return system for other packaging – in the case of beer, these are aluminum cans. We are facing large investments,” Morzycki noted.
New deposit system. When?
ZPPP is anxiously observing the increasingly delayed work on the announced amendment to the regulations. “This causes us to operate in a state of increasing uncertainty as to when and in what form we will implement the deposit system.
At the end of June this year, during the work of the Sejm Subcommittee on the Economy and Municipal Infrastructure, Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment Anita Sowińska announced that reusable glass bottles would be included in the deposit system from 2026. According to previous assumptions, glass bottles were to be included in the deposit system from the moment the system was launched, i.e. from 2025.
The Ministry decided to extend the formally permissible period of operation of the currently operating systems for collecting such packaging by another year, i.e. until the end of 2026. It was noted that the work did not take into account “further reaching postulates” submitted during the consultations, including the complete exclusion of glass bottles from the system. Inter-ministerial arrangements are ongoing, and any further changes will be presented when the legislative process moves to the next stage, i.e. to the European Affairs Committee. (PAP)
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