FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Regular Arkansas Business readers will remember learning last week about Assistant Professor Scott Lafontaine at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and his work to train craft brewers. But the beer expert has other research interests, namely improving the quality of nonalcoholic beers and beverages, an expanding industry.
The nonalcoholic beverage sector is “really growing,” Lafontaine said. That’s because Gen Z is drinking less alcohol than previous generations. More than a quarter, 27%, claim they never drink, and the millennial generation also consumes less alcohol than previous generations.
One of the goals of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the largest brewer in the world, is to have 20% of their products by 2025 be no or low-alcohol beverages, Lafontaine said. “When you start to look at drinking habits of Gen Z, you have a large proportion of Gen Z that are non-drinkers. These companies, to appeal to them, are moving into that nonalcoholic development space, and one of those things is nonalcoholic beers, and there’s a lot of interest in that.”
To read more about this story, our content partner Arkansas Business has the full story here.
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