Proprietor August Sebastiani debuted a reserve line of Gehricke Wines through its first direct-to-consumer (DTC) program, featuring three small production, single vineyard wines from top sites in Sonoma County.

Although worldwide beverage alcohol volume increased slightly in 2019, reversing declines from the year prior, it will be five years before the global industry rebounds from the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, according to comprehensive new research from IWSR Drinks Market Analysis.

For the United States, sales trends remain slightly elevated as total store sales are up 4.1 percent, according to IRI data. Total non-edible sale are relatively flat (up 0.8 percent), while total edible sales are up 5.1 percent.

IRI updated the report “Consumer Spending Tracker: COVID-19 Impact” to capture the most recent insights. The most recent report sources sales data from the IRI POS Data ending April 12. For the United States, sales trends remain elevated but are down significantly from its peak. Total store sales were up 14.3 percent for that time period. For edible, sales were up 18.8 percent; however, for the week timeframe, non-edible sales were down 0.8 percent.

Across geographies, consumer demand appears to be beginning to stabilize toward previous year trends, although in some categories demand is significantly higher or lower than the previous year, according to recent information from Information Resources Inc. (IRI), Chicago.

In the United States, IRI National Consumer Panel data shows customers are both making more trips and buying larger baskets in the most recent two weeks. Both pantry stocking and smaller quick trips were up significantly.

As the COVID-19 outbreak accelerates in Europe and the United States, governments, businesses and consumers are rapidly changing behaviors. In its March 26 report titled “COVID-19 Impact: Consumer Spending Tracker for MULOC Retailers – US, UK, France, Italy, NZ,” Chicago-based Information Resources Inc. (IRI) collaborated with its partners at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to analyze the latest consumer purchases in these respective countries.

Since the acceleration of the COVID-19 outbreak across the world, governments, businesses and consumers are changing behaviors rapidly. To keep abreast of these shifts, Chicago-based Information Resources Inc. (IRI) collaborated with its partners at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to analyze the latest consumer purchases in Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the United States in the report March 19 report “COVID-19 Impact: Consumer Spending Tracker.”