Low/No Alcohol Wines w/ BevZero's Debbie Novograd & Kayla Winter

The low and no alcohol wine space is growing rapidly. Enough so that a company specializing in spinning cone technology to reduce alcohol, ConeTech, changed its name to BevZero. Debbie Novograd, CEO, and Kayla Winter, Director of Product Services & Winemaking, discuss the technology, the challenges of producing good no alcohol wine, and the market for low and no alcohol wines.  Don’t forget to support the show on Patreon and get access to our backlog of great episodes and show notes!Detailed Show Notes: Alcohol reduction technologiesReverse Osmosis - pass wine through filters, removes water and alcohol, can only bring down abv by a few % per pass, requires multiple passes to get to 0% (more taken out of the wine)Spinning Cones - creates thin film vacuum distillation with heat added (37C) to extract alcohol w/o cooking wine, only spends a few seconds in stillBevZero historyFounded in 1991 as ConeTech as a tool in the winemaker’s toolbelt to adjust alcohol to hit a “sweet spot”Before 2018, >14% abv wines had a higher excise tax, alcohol reduction used to bring wines below 14%Spinning Cone technologyCan pull off different substances with different molecular weights (more than alcohol if desired)Small units (1,000L/hour) start at $1.5MGoLo tech starts at $500-650kDefinitionsLow alcohol wine: 5.5-10% abvNo alcohol wine: 0-0.5% abvUses of technology by geographyEurope - 99% for 0% abv productsUSA - until 2 years ago - 90% for alc adjustment, 10% for low/no alcUSA - 2022 - 30% low/no alc -> 50% in 2023Very large players doing adjustmentNo alc - mostly startups, recently, big players interestedMarket SizingNon-alc space $2B in 2021 -> forecasts range from $3.5 - 6B over next 10 yearsIWSR projects no/low growing faster (7% CAGR) vs. alcohol (1% CAGR)Wine has been slower growth North America no alc wine market - $450M in 2021Low alc mainly US (bigger than no alc) and AustraliaNo alc beer - 75% of total spaceProducing no alc wine challengingNeed suitable grape varieties for base wine - fruit-forward and aromatic work bestAcid, color, tannin get concentratedSparkling does well; bubbles mask the lack of weight (bubbles through forced carbonation)No alc is an FDA product - can add more ingredients (e.g., natural flavors, mouthfeel agents), must have a nutritional panelInitial no alc wines used bad base wine and added lots of sugar to compensateMany sweeten with grape juice concentrate, but trend is towards less sweet (now ~high 20g/L sugar)Price pointsOriginal products were $5-6/bottle, now up to $30/bottleMajority are in the $10-15/bottle range, largest customer does still & sparkling wine in the $25-30/bottle rangeConsumer use casesMain segment (70%) - people who still drink alcohol, drink both low and no alc winesAbstainers a small %Gen Z pushing growthLow alc targets lower calorie, lower carb segmentMeets a ritualistic need that non-alc fillsBranding and salesNo alc startups sell DTC, leveraging social media marketingLow alc has some big players - 50/50 develop new brands, some use existing Specialty online retailers for low/no alc Higher quality products will drive future growth Get access to library episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.