Zero-alcohol companies look to capture millennial and 'sober curious' drinkers

livemint.com:

ashwagandha go into Catwalk and are brewed over a few months using monk fruit as a sweetener and is produced and bottled in Ahmedabad. A sizable number of companies across India, big and small, including Catwalk, Sober, Sobriety Sips and the bigwigs in the beer industry are now experimenting in creating non and low alcohol spirits, including beer, wine, gin, whisky and others. What's driving this trend is a cohort of drinkers who are now looking to cut down on their consumption.

There is also some—perhaps very limited—interest from non-consumers of alcohol as well. Early days of the category saw a lot of non-alcoholic beers being produced which paved the way for these businesses and now several independent companies have joined the bandwagon, creating various types of distilled and dealcoholized spirits. "The low or no alcohol segments, especially 0% alcohol beer, is shaping up well," said Vinod Giri, director general of the Brewers Association of India.

The association represents AB InBev, Heineken and Carlsberg here. “It’s early days and the base is small, but the trends are encouraging. Most of its consumption seems to be coming from non-drinkers during social occasions who cannot have alcohol for whatever reason, by choice, or health reasons or for post-occasion driving responsibility.

This category does eat into some occasions associated with the larger alcoholic beverage market, both in spirits and beers, but there is little evidence that it materially affects alcobev sector. There is some argument that it builds familiarity with the taste of alcohol, reduces barriers to trial and thus may even help recruit new consumers," he said. Non-alcoholic spirits, on the other hand, are still too new to even capture the