How will canned wine's increased popularity affect shelf spaces for beer?

Bigger coolers

 

Diminishing returns

As more and more beers, ciders, and other alcohol drinks come to market stores will run out of space for anything but top sellers. The big guys will get more space since they sell more. Catch -22 in a way.

As a shop owner why would you keep slow sellers that don’t sell after the first release. As a consumer you won’t buy old beer.

Too much can be a bad thing sometimes and it’s starti g to look that way right now in the beer world.

Enjoy

 

With stores selling 12oz cans of bourbon barrel aged wine, crossover seems to be the name of the game for everybody.

 

I hate the concept of canned wine. That said unfortunately we do carry a few in our store. The ones that are in a cooler are in our wine cooler. And that's where they are going to stay, I refuse to let anything else take away cooler space from good beer.

 

A standard pour of wine is 5-6oz so that's around $3 a glass or around $12 for a 750mL. And there are a lot of really good wines in cans as well, maybe not at the grocery store, but they're out there.

 

That's exactly what Oskar Blues reports many customers thought when OB first began canning their craft beers. Now look at the beer cold cases today, more cans than bottles.

 

Every place I shop at, whether it is a grocery store, a large format bottle shop, or a mom and pop shop, has always kept wine and beer separate. If the "wine section" abruptly becomes larger and the "beer section" abruptly becomes smaller...that only means I will have less beer to buy at that establishment. There are always competitors I can go to.

 

Sure, but there are some great $10 750s of wine. I agree with @DarkDragon999 that the pricing of cans is out of whack, at least for some wines.

 

As for the store I work in, it doesn't affect it at all. We have Underwood cans, Lila 4 packs, and there might be 1 more brand I'm forgetting but they are in the wine section of the store and arent even in the cooler. The only time they move is when its summer and people want to go to the beach/pool. I work at a large NJ liquor chain so my personal experience might be off. I could see the smaller mom/pop shops struggling with space issues.

 

Why do you hate it? I always thought wine should have more packaging options because big glass bottles have their drawbacks. For example if you just want to drink a glass of wine, you need to open a whole bottle and then if you don't drink the rest of that bottle quickly the wine will oxidize. I've thrown out several bottles of wine because they oxidized on me, as I tend to not drink wine often.

 

When they start making vanilla Cracker Jack merlot in cans we might see a big shift in sales.

 

It won't, because as others have noted. The two don't share space at most liquor stores and at larger liquor stores would be handled, and/or dealt with by different people on staff. More options for wine to become a more portable beverage isn't necessarily a bad thing for that kind of consumer.
Beer is already going to have problems with shelf space because of the problem beer has created for itself.

 

You ever get half bottles? I don't get the concept of hating canned wine either but might be a better option for you. They come in 375ml bottles

 

A lot of the canned wine I see around here is in 375ml cans, half a bottle. At 5 or 6 bucks it's a pretty good option if you just want a few glasses. Certainly not as classy looking as a bottle of wine, but it has it's place I suppose.
As far as taking up beer shelf space, it hasn't been an issue here. It will take over wine shelf space instead, whether in the cooler or on the shelves. With there still just being a handful carried most places its hasn't made much of a dent in the bottled wine side either.

 

Once the wine makers realize 4 packs of 16 ounce cans are all the rage only then we shall see how this plays out.

 

Hmm. I'm thinking that canned wines will be very popular as a seasonal option. Beach, pool, a summer kinda buy. Other than that I like the traditional bottle format. Why would I buy canned wine in Nov or Dec?

 

Hopefully there will be no displacement of craft beers, the space for canned wine will be taken out of bottled wine space.

 

Remains to be seen, but I'd agree right now. Still think it's going to be more of a seasonal push.