World class non-alcoholic options
A thirst for a healthier lifestyle and sober state of mind are the reasons behind the meteoric rise of no-alcohol and low-alcohol products within the drinks industry. Millennials lead the way in the demand for products in this ever-expanding category, and with restaurants offering more mocktails and store shelves vastly increasing their shelf space for zero-proof products, it is safe to say this category is not going to shrink anytime soon.
Mark Kuspira, who founded Crush Imports in 2003, was an early adopter of non-alcoholic products. His workdays started with time spent online poring over market trends and industry news. During the COVID-19 pandemic, having (more) time to spend researching, he noticed that non-alcohol drinks-related articles kept popping up in his feed. “I had a couple of people reach out to me about no- and low-alcohol drinks and decided I needed to taste the stuff.”
Kuspira admits to questioning how these products would be perceived in the market and wondered how he could create the dotted line between his current portfolio and the non-alcohol offerings. After speaking to his team, and, together, tasting over 400 products, he launched Soft Crush with 11 items on the list. Today there are 35 no- and low-alcohol products in the portfolio, with a breakdown of 85 per cent wine, 20 per cent spirits and 5 per cent RTD (ready-to-drink). Where one could only buy two or three products without alcohol, there’s now something for everyone’s tastes. “The most successful product by far has been in the sparkling wine category,” Kuspira says. “The bubble is the placebo for the missing alcohol.”
The parameters on what products Kuspira chooses are strict. In selecting wines, for example, the grapes need to come from vitis vinifera vines, from a place of provenance that grows grapes, and with no flavour manipulations and/or editions—wine in its purest sense, yet one that has gone through a dealcoholization process, either by vacuum distillation or centrifuge, two processes that continue to improve with the evolution in modern technology. “There are some historical producers trying to get into the game of non-alc, because they know the space needs to be there,” Kuspira says.
To make their mark with no/low products, Soft Crush entered the Vancouver Wine Festival in 2022 where their presence and the offerings at the table were generally dismissed and labelled with skepticism. A year later, things had completely changed along with people’s attitudes. “Whether the category is embraced or whether they know the wine sales have declined for whatever reasons, they know they need to be inclusive in their wine offerings,” Kuspira says.
Along with less tolerance of (and stricter laws on) drinking and driving, no/low drinks appeal to so many because the trend is an all-inclusive one. “There’s always going to be someone who is not drinking for whatever reason,” Kuspira says. “And those reasons are diverse. It’s not just about recovery. It’s about faith, lifestyle and moderation.”
When it comes to alcohol free products, less is definitely more as it turns out, and for people like Mark Kuspira, that’s a very good thing, indeed.
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