206: Low and no alcohol: What next for the sector?

<div>Globally, alcohol consumption is thought to have declined by 10% in 2020.<br> <br> </div> <div>And between 2020 and 2024 the “low and no” market is expected to balloon by 34%.</div> <div> <br> But what's next for the sector? What will we all be drinking in ten years' time? And how can "low and no" overcome some of the challenges it faces?<br> <br> In this episode of the Table Talk podcast, Stefan Gates is joined by three experts to help answer some of those questions.<br> <br> They discuss why developments in alcohol-free wine have been slower than in alcohol-free beer, why a trace amount of alcohol means a drink is less likely to go to waste, and they tackle the big question: What should the low and no alcohol sector actually be called?<br> <br> They also try to predict what the alcohol-free trends will be in 2022 and beyond. Future-gazing is a fool's game - but let's do it anyway!<br> <br> <strong>Laura Willoughby MBE, Founder of Club Soda and the Mindful Drinking Festival</strong><br> <br> The inspiration for Club Soda comes from Laura’s experience of giving up drinking ten years ago. A campaigner at heart with a background in movement building and politics, she realised that one of the big sticking points was a way to support people to take a self-guided journey to change their drinking.</div> <br> <div>Club Soda has over 70,000 individual members and nearly 80 brand members who they support through research and collaborative projects. They have built a drinks guide and they run the UK’s only Mindful Drinking Festival which is now in its 8th edition. </div> <div> <br> <strong>Rob Fink, Co Founder, Big Drop Brew<br> <br> </strong>In 2016 Rob Fink founded the world’s first company to focus entirely on brewing alcohol-free beer – Big Drop Brewing Co. As a lawyer with zero brewing experience, he teamed-up with an experimental brewer (Johnny Clayton from Wild Beer) and the creative mind of school-friend and entrepreneur James Kindred. Together they applied left-field fermenting techniques that meant no alcoh