Spiros Malandrakis, industry manager for alcohol drinks at Euromonitor International, has spent more than two decades watching the beverage industry expand, and is now watching it contract. In this wide-ranging conversation, he discusses what he calls the "permacrisis" gripping global drinks, arguing that the cyclical downturn the industry keeps hoping to ride out may already be something far more structural.
Spiros also argues that alcohol's real problem is an identity crisis: it's a fashion category pretending to be a food category, and it's losing younger consumers partly because their parents made it uncool. He also reveals a concept he's been developing and hasn't yet published — "nihilistic indulgence" — the emerging countertrend to wellness culture, driven by a generation of young people in crisis.
Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor and analyst. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly. Her Drinks Insider podcast won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Audio.
Everybody says they want to attract a new generation of consumers to wine, but Jess Druey’s gone and done it. In this episode of...
What’s better than marketing your brand yourself? Getting other people to talk about your brand. The more (positive) attention you get, the easier it...
There’s a wine downturn going on, and yet The Wine Group, America’s second-largest wine company, is snapping up brands like the market is expanding....