Market Data
Help Shape the Future of Cider: Take the 2023 ACA Cider Production Survey
At the American Cider Association we work hard to support cider and cidermakers across the United States every day of the year, but we can’t do it without some help from you. We need to provide Congress, the media, and buyers with the most up-to-date and complete industry overview we possibly can. We are asking for you to assist us in collecting aggregated production information for the US cidery industry for 2023 so that we have the most accurate information to promote cider at all levels.
If you are licensed to make cider on a commercial basis we invite you to take our survey so we can gather information vital to promoting and protecting cider in the US.
Details:
- This survey will take about 30 minutes to complete.
- The survey is being aggregated and anonymized by a third party. They have agreed to not share information with us that might identify who you or your cidery are. YOUR PRIVACY MATTERS TO US.
- Your cidery name is collected by the 3rd party to ensure there are no duplicates, but the ACA will not store that information after the survey has been returned to us with identify features removed.
- We do ask a number of questions about sales, staffing and production for 2023. You will find it helpful to have that data handy before completing the survey.
- Note: If you produce wine or other beverages besides cider, please answer only considering your cider production.
- Deadline to complete the survey is December 13, 2024.
- Anyone who submits their completed survey and provides their contact info will be entered into a raffle to win an American Cider Association hoodie (4 available) and a grand prize winner will receive a complimentary ticket to CiderCon® 2025!
If you have any questions regarding this survey or how the data is used, please contact CEO of the American Cider Association Michelle McGrath.
We appreciate your help in allowing us to continue to promote cider across the United States!
August 22: Crafting Compelling Stories: The Role of Data in Your Brand’s Narrative
Join us August 22 at 11:00 AM Pacific for an insightful webinar hosted by the American Cider Association in partnership with 3-Tier Beverages, where we’ll explore how to transform raw data into compelling narratives that captivate your audience and elevate your cider brand.
In this session, you’ll learn:
- The Essentials of Data Storytelling: Discover the fundamentals of turning data into engaging stories that resonate with your customers and how you can differentiate your cider in a competitive market.
- Effective Data Analysis Techniques: Gain practical insights into analyzing and interpreting data from the ACA Member Dashboard to uncover meaningful trends and patterns that can inform your storytelling.
- Crafting Your Brand Narrative: Learn strategies for integrating data insights into your brand story to highlight your cider’s unique attributes and characteristics to connect with your target audience on a deeper level.
Whether you’re established or just starting out, this webinar will provide you with the tools and techniques needed to utilize the full potential of your data to tell the best story for You and Your Brand.
Speakers
Julia Lechleiter
Julia Lechleiter started out her career at 84.51 on their Insights team where she supported emerging CPG brands in leveraging Kroger household data to guide customer-focused assortment, promotion, innovation and digital strategies. After supporting clients on numerous new item presentations and being exposed to the power of BASES innovation research, she joined NIQ on the BASES BevAl team. While she learned to love the BevAl industry, she missed working in a data platform to support clients run various analyses, specifically those related to retailer relations which led her to 3 Tier. Julia graduated from Miami University with a degree in Marketing, and lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband. They have a 1-year old son, John, and two cocker spaniels, Bailey and Phil.
Devon Hevener
Devon Hevener started out his career working in the culinary industry as the general manager for 5 years where he used data to better understand trends in the area to help the business grow from a single food cart to several carts and a brick and mortar. Most recently, he has spent the last year working with the American Cider Association as a Consumer and Market Data Research Intern where he was able to learn the industry firsthand through the mentorship of industry experts and various ad-hoc projects which helped connect him to 3-Tier. One of his most significant projects was the creation of a formal database of all cider producers within the United States. Devon graduated from Portland State University with a degree in Business Technology & Analytics and currently lives in the Portland, Oregon area with his wife Hannah.
Coffee Chat with 3 Tier Beverages
Are you curious about the latest trends in the cider industry? Join us for a members-only Coffee Chat webinar on January 9, 2024, at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, where Mary Mills and Julia Lechleiter from 3 Tier Beverages will share insights on 2023 chainr retail cider sales and consumer behavior.
The duo will provide a comprehensive analysis of the top 100 US cideries, off-premise growth, and regional insights based on data from NielsenIQ. With their expertise in the beverage industry, Mary and Julia will identify the drivers of growth and highlight emerging trends in the cider market at the chain retail level.
But the conversation doesn’t end there! Continue the discussion with 3 Tier Beverages at CiderCon® 2024 on Thursday, January 18 at 10:30 AM. This session will be co-led with our partners at CGA, a leader in on-premise data, and 3 Tier Beverages, a BevAl focused consultancy.
Don’t miss out on this exclusive opportunity to learn from industry experts and gain insights that can help your business thrive in the cider market. Register now for the Coffee Chat webinar and CiderCon® 2024 to stay ahead of the curve.
New On Premise Data for ACA Members!
Nationally Cider is up 3.3% in On Premise channels for the 52 week period ending April 23, 2023.
That’s right! On Premise data is back! We have renewed our partnership with CGA by NIQ OPM to bring our members helpful insights about On Premise cider trends. Drill down by Chain or Independent establishments, by 6 major urban markets, by national/regional brands, and by draft/package. Compare current trends to data from the last couple years to see growth and opportunities.
You must be an active ACA member to view this data. Not a member? Join now! Need to renew your membership. Renew here!
Fresh Data Insights Found in Latest Members-Only Cider Market Dashboard
For the lastest 13 week period through May 20, 2023, regional cider brand sales were up 7.2% YOY per NIQ.
Cideries use data talking points like this to make decisions and to pitch retailers, investors and wholesalers. But good data is hard to find and can be cost prohibitive. We have some good news for you though. Cider market data is included in your membership with the American Cider Association–what a great benefit!
The latest 3 Tier Beverages dashboard is now available to ACA members with data current as of May 20, 2023. Explore recent off-premise cider sales trends by state, packaging, style and more.
3 Tier Beverages, in partnership with NIQ, is proud to be the official data supplier of the American Cider Association. Part of this partnership brings you quarterly dashboards with key market data and insights to help you drive your business forward. Should you be interested in more detail on your brands/markets, please reach out to Mary Mills at 3 Tier Beverages.
If you missed our dashboard orientation webinar, you can watch it here.
In addition, there is a Glossary of Attributes available to help you understand the terms used as you progress through the data. You can download the glossary here.
Looking for data for previous time periods? Access our Cider Reports Library here.
We are data nerds here at ACA so please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
How to Submit Your SKUs to Circana
We want to make sure your cider is accounted for in national sales data. It’s important that every cider is included so we can have an accurate picture of the cider industry and can collect data that you can use when pitching your ciders to wholesalers and retailers around the country. Please submit your new or updated SKUs to Circana today.
Please find below detailed instructions for how to submit new products to Circana (formerly IRI).
Work with your Client Service Consultant to submit image labels. If you are not a Circana client, send images directly to: DCA.ElectronicImage@circana.com.
Submission Guidelines
- New SKU – send images of packaging with UPC on the packaging; Circana does not accept images without clear UPCs.
- If an item is a seasonal/series/rotational, provide packaging with the multiple styles/flavors to Circana. If those packaging images are not available, provide a sell sheet or proof that there are multiple styles/flavors using the same UPC. If you want a specific series name included in the coding, please include the word “series” in the packaging name, otherwise Circana will code as seasonal.
- Image Requirements
- Multi-packs need either a flat-file package image, two images of the front and the side of the package containing the UPC, or a flattened carton to show both front and side with UPC.
- Multi-packs in snap ring/hicone (where individual can/bottle only option for scanning the multi-pack unit). Turn one can/bottle to show the front label and another to show the part with the UPC with both connected through the snap ring/hicone.
- Singles need either the flat-file package/label image or two images of the front and back of the container and a clear image of the UPC code.
- Change Coding on Existing SKUs – send images of packaging and details of attribute(s) you wish to change.
New Item Coding for UPCs with NIQ
We want to make sure your cider is accounted for in national sales data. It’s important every cider is included so we can have an accurate picture of the cider industry and collect data that you can use when pitching your ciders to wholesalers and retailers around the country.
Please find below detailed instructions for how to submit new products to NIQ (formerly Nielsen).
To get NEW UPCs added:
- Fill out the NPC 2023 Form.
- Send both the form and correct photos (see below for photo guidelines) to Mary Mills at 3 Tier Beverages and she and her team will make sure everything is good to go for NIQ. She recommends uploading images to a shared drive (Dropbox or Google Drive) in order to preserve image quality.
Photo Guidelines:
Below is an in-depth photo guideline to follow when submitting photos to NIQ to get new UPCs coded or current ones updated.
Nielsen accepts 2 types of photos:
- 3D: Photos of the real 3D item.
- Flat: 2D photos of the label/box.
Nielsen is VERY PARTICULAR about the photos needed so below are the guidelines to follow. The images needed are described below, flat photos are best if you have them. If not, please send images of the actual item. For either type of photos you choose to submit, Nielsen requires photos of:
- Clear images of all 6 sides, including top & bottom of the individual product
- Clear images of all 6 sides, including top & bottom of the packs (2/4/6/12pk/etc) are needed if they are not sold individually
- Make sure photos are in jpeg format or else they will NOT be accepted
- They need to be clear, have a neutral background, and high resolution so no blurring when zoomed in
- Professional photos are not required
Click here to view photo examples for both 3-D and Flat.
Have questions? Email our NIQ contact Ryan Sisto.
A Few Tips for Getting the Most Out of Cider Market Data
We’re excited by the prospect of being able to provide both on-premises and off-premises syndicated data through our partnership with CGA & Nielsen IQ. With access to this data being a newer feature of ACA membership, we thought it prudent to go over a few concepts related to on and off-prem syndicated data.
Both on and off-prem sales statistics are measured using similar metrics including both dollars of cider sold and volume of cider sold. It’s important to remember that syndicated sales data such as this measures transactions from the retailer sold to the customer, not from the producer sold to the wholesaler or the wholesaler sold to the retailer. This data is always extrapolated from a smaller sample size to represent the larger market, so often the data is not an exact metric, but rather a gauge on overall trends.
In on-prem, this data represents sales from customers buying cider from bars, restaurants and venues. In the off-prem this data represents sales from customers buying cider at grocery stores, convenience stores and liquor stores. At first glance, the on-prem dollar sales are larger than off-prem sales for the trailing 52 weeks leading us to believe that the on-premises is where the majority of cider revenue is coming from. However, on-prem retailers sell our ciders at a very different price per gallon to their customers than do grocery stores. If you compare the volume of cider sold through on and off-prem, you can see that off-prem sells more than twice the volume as on-prem. Both on and off-prem data measures the volume of cider sold in Case Equivalents (24x12oz or 288oz). Syndicated data uses these case equivalents so that we can more easily compare volumes of cider sold regardless of whether sold in a keg or a can.
Be careful when comparing data between on and off-premises as both can be useful but it can be misleading if compared directly to one another without context and analysis. We hope this helps you to make better use of the data newly available to us.
You can find the on and off-premise data in our Resource Hub.
You must be an active ACA member to view the data. Not an ACA member? Join now!
Nielsen Q1 2023 Data Now Available!
This content is for members only.
If you were a member and are now seeing this message, please Renew your membership to continue.
Webinar: The Story Within the Story of Cider
You’ve heard the headlines and the general trends for Cider. Join Brian “BK” Krueger and Dave Williams from Bump Williams Consulting on Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 11:00 AM Pacific to dive in a little deeper and really take a look at the KPI’s that matter and how you can apply them to your own situation, presentations, insights, and decisions.
You can expect to hear more of the story on Cider Velocity, Runway for the Future, the Role of Flavor, Pack Size and Type, Innovation, Regional Power, and the Modern Bev Alc Consumer.
This webinar is for active ACA members only. Not a member? Join now!
Our Speakers
Brian “BK” Krueger graduated from the University of Texas, Austin in 1996 with a degree in Marketing – focusing on Strategic Marketing & Promotional Strategies. BK is a 24-year Industry Sales Leader with a distinguished and accomplished history of growth and development across multiple National and Regional Craft Breweries. Rising from New Belgium’s first “Texas Beer Ranger” in 1999, BK spent 17 years growing in parallel with New Belgium’s success and expansion and held the role of Assistant Director of Sales for 5+ Years. Leaving New Belgium in 2015, BK spent the next 4 years applying his knowledge, experience, and skill set to an extended selection of National and Regional Craft Breweries helping to evolve them into the modern and future world of Craft Beer. Joining Bump Williams Consulting in 2020, BK now applies his talents and expertise on Sales Systems and Structure, Portfolio Development, Distributor & Retailer Partnership, and Sales Strategy & Growth across the broad spectrum of Beverage Alcohol clients.
Dave Williams graduated from Penn State University in 2006 with a degree in Marketing. Dave began his career at Marketing Management Analytics (Ipsos MMA) as a Data Analyst, running sales regression models and market level analytics across various Retail and CPG clients. He left MMA and joined Nielsen in 2010, working up to the role of Client Manager. In this role, Dave led a team dedicated to Market Mix, Price/Promo and Consumer analysis for Procter & Gamble globally, spanning multiple categories and brands across their wide portfolio. In 2015, Dave left Nielsen to join Bump Williams Consulting where he currently runs high-end analytics across the Beverage Alcohol universe. His key focus areas include Consumer Behavior, Pricing, Promotion and Retail Landscape for BWC’s Supplier, Distributor and Retailer clients.