Low-alcohol and alcohol-free drinks are now a measurable part of the pub and wider on-trade market. In Great Britain, pubs, bars, restaurants and nightclubs sold £153 million of no/low drinks in 2023, while 31% of adults said they had consumed one at least once in 2024. The figures below separate sales observations from survey estimates and distinguish Great Britain on-trade data from UK consumer research.
Contents
- On-trade market size and sales
- Availability and service formats
- Beverage mix and category shares
- Pricing and product assortment
- Customer uptake and frequency
- Motivations, substitution and barriers
On-trade market size and sales
The Alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks in Great Britain: Monitoring report on 2023 data, based on CGA by NIQ data, records 0.3 litres of no/low drinks sold per adult through the on-trade in 2023. The on-trade series covers pubs, bars, restaurants and nightclubs, so it is a sector measure rather than a pub-only estimate.
The same report puts 2023 on-trade no/low sales at £153 million. No/low drinks represented 0.7% of all on-trade alcoholic-drink sales volume and 0.6% of sales value in Great Britain. The comparable no/low share of alcoholic-drink sales in the off-trade was 1.9%, showing that the category had a larger relative presence outside pubs and other licensed venues.
Across on-trade and off-trade combined, total no/low sales volume rose 66% between 2020 and 2023. Total sales value rose 126% over the same period. Those are combined-market changes, not a claim that on-trade sales alone grew by those percentages.
The on-trade accounted for about 0.3 litres of the 1.5 litres of no/low drinks sold per adult across Great Britain in 2023. This provides useful context for a pub manager: the on-trade contributed a minority of measured volume, but it remains an important setting where customers can choose a no/low option while socialising.
Availability and service formats
No/low beer is the most widely available no/low category in the on-trade. In 2023, 74% of on-trade outlets sold it. Availability had increased from 45% in 2014 to 74% in 2023, a 29-percentage-point rise across the period.
The format split is substantial. Packaged no/low beer was sold by 74% of on-trade outlets in 2023, while only 5% sold no/low beer on draught. Draught availability rose slightly from 4% of outlets in 2022 to 5% in 2023, but remained far below packaged availability.
Other categories had lower outlet penetration in 2023:
| No/low category | Share of on-trade outlets selling it, 2023 |
|---|---|
| Beer | 74% |
| Cider | 31% |
| Spirits | 20% |
| Wine | Less than 2% |
| Ready-to-drink products | Less than 2% |
These availability figures describe whether an outlet sold a category, not how much it sold. They therefore point to distribution breadth rather than customer demand at each individual venue. The gap between packaged and draught beer is also a service-format distinction: a pub may offer a packaged bottle or can without carrying a no/low product through its draught system.
Beverage mix and category shares
The on-trade no/low market was heavily concentrated in beer in 2023. No/low beer made up 82% of on-trade no/low sales volume in Great Britain. No/low cider supplied a further 16%. No/low wine accounted for less than 1%, while no/low spirits and ready-to-drink products each accounted for no more than 1%.
The category shares of all on-trade sales were much smaller. No/low beer represented 0.7% of all on-trade beer sales volume, while no/low cider represented 0.9% of all on-trade cider sales volume. These measures should not be confused with the 82% and 16% shares above: the first pair measures penetration within the wider beer or cider category, and the second pair describes the composition of no/low volume.
No/low beer also supplied 76% of on-trade no/low sales value in 2023. Wine had a different value profile between channels: no/low wine supplied 1% of on-trade no/low sales value, compared with 18% in the off-trade. This is a sales-value comparison, not an indication that 18% of pub no/low sales came from wine.
The data also distinguish alcohol-free from low-alcohol products. About 78% of on-trade no/low litres sold were alcohol-free rather than low-alcohol from 2018 onward. For no/low wine specifically, 93% of litres sold in 2023 were alcohol-free.
For terminology, the UK government evidence review on the alcohol-free descriptor states that, under government descriptor guidance, alcohol-free products contain no more than 0.05% ABV and low-alcohol products contain no more than 1.2% ABV. This is guidance context, not a sales measurement.
Pricing and product assortment
The average on-trade price of no/low beer fell from £8.07 to £7.78 per litre in real terms between 2020 and 2023. The figures are expressed in 2023 prices, so this is a real-terms comparison. Between 2022 and 2023, the average price fell by £0.04 per litre, or 0.4%, in real terms.
Despite that movement, no/low beer remained more expensive than standard beer on a per-litre basis in 2023. The average no/low beer price was 25% higher than standard beer. The pattern differed across categories: no/low cider cost 9% more per litre than standard cider, while no/low wine cost 23% less per litre than standard wine in the on-trade.
The assortment expanded alongside the market. There were 206 distinct no/low product SKUs sold in the on-trade in 2023, up from 128 in 2020. The 2023 total comprised 104 beers, 18 ciders, 17 wines, 62 spirits and 5 ready-to-drink products.
| Product category | No/low SKUs in the on-trade, 2023 |
|---|---|
| Beer | 104 |
| Cider | 18 |
| Wine | 17 |
| Spirits | 62 |
| Ready-to-drink | 5 |
| Total | 206 |
SKU counts measure the number of distinct products recorded, not the number of products stocked by every pub. They also sit alongside the availability data: spirits had 62 recorded SKUs but were sold by 20% of outlets, while beer had 104 SKUs and was sold by 74% of outlets.
Customer uptake and frequency
The Alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks in Great Britain report reports survey estimates for adults in Great Britain in 2024. Thirty-one percent consumed no/low drinks at least once, 18% consumed them at least monthly, and 9% consumed them at least weekly.
Approximately 20% of adults consumed no/low drinks at least annually in both the off-trade and on-trade in 2024. Approximately 10% consumed them at least monthly in both channels. These are survey estimates and describe reported consumption, rather than till sales or the percentage of pub visitors choosing a no/low drink.
The available age figures show different patterns by frequency. Among 18–24-year-olds, 26% consumed no/low drinks at least once a year in 2024. Among adults aged 65 and over, 13% consumed no/low drinks at least weekly. Because the two figures use different age groups and frequency thresholds, they should not be read as a direct age ranking for annual consumption.
Consumption also varied by drinking-risk group. Forty percent of risky drinkers consumed no/low products in the last year in 2024, compared with 38% of low-risk drinkers and 10% of non-drinkers. The measure covers the previous year and does not specify whether consumption occurred in pubs, at home or in another setting.
Motivations, substitution and barriers
The Relationships with alcohol: 2025 Drinkaware Monitor Research Report gives UK survey estimates for 2025. Forty-five percent of UK drinkers consumed a low- or no-alcohol drink in the previous 12 months, up from 22% in 2021. This is a different population and measure from the Great Britain adult estimate for 2024, so the figures should not be combined into one trend line.
Among UK drinkers who consumed low/no alcohol in 2025, 61% used it only as a replacement for alcoholic drinks. A further 23% used it both as a replacement and alongside regular alcohol, depending on the situation. Together, these findings describe two practical roles for a pub menu: a substitute for a conventional alcoholic drink and an additional option within a mixed drinking occasion.
The reasons reported by UK low/no consumers included needing to drive soon afterwards, cited by 34%, curiosity or interest in trying the products, cited by 26%, and liking an alcoholic-like taste, cited by 24%. These percentages are reasons among low/no consumers, not the share of all pub customers who would respond to each offer.
Not every customer seeking a lower-alcohol choice wants a substitute product. Among UK drinkers who did not consume low/no alcohol in 2025, 52% said they would prefer soft drinks. For a pub, that statistic supports keeping soft drinks visible alongside no/low beer, cider, wine and spirits rather than treating the categories as interchangeable.
Use of non-alcoholic beer, wine or spirit substitutes to moderate drinking was reported by 31% of UK drinkers in 2025. That was unchanged from 2024 and higher than the 18% recorded in 2018. The measure is about reported use of substitutes to moderate drinking; it does not quantify how often those products were bought in pubs.
Age and social grade were associated with different reported uptake levels in the 2025 UK survey. Fifty percent of drinkers aged 18–34 consumed low/no alcohol, compared with 46% of those aged 35–54 and 42% of those aged 55 and over. By social grade, 56% of drinkers in grades AB consumed low/no alcohol, compared with 30% in grades DE.
| UK drinker group | Consumed low/no alcohol in 2025 |
|---|---|
| Age 18–34 | 50% |
| Age 35–54 | 46% |
| Age 55 and over | 42% |
| Social grade AB | 56% |
| Social grade DE | 30% |
Taken together, the statistics describe a category with broadening availability, a large beer-led sales mix and a growing product set, but with clear differences between packaged and draught service, on-trade and off-trade performance, and low/no consumers who want substitution versus those who prefer soft drinks.