Dive Brief:
- Half of Gen Z consumers and 47% of millennials make beverage-only purchases each week, according to a National Restaurant Association report on drinks trends.
- Beverage-only occasions are significantly concentrated in afternoon dayparts, including lunch and the mid-afternoon. About 69% of all consumers make beverage-only purchases in those two time windows, compared to 39% in the morning and 24% in the evenings.
- The frequency of beverage purchases by younger consumers is helping drive the explosive growth of beverage-only or beverage-forward brands, like 7 Brew and Dutch Bros.
Dive Insight:
The generational divide on beverage-only purchases is particularly sharp. Only 36% of Gen X consumers and 20% of baby boomers partake in beverage-only restaurant occasions on a weekly basis. The starkness of the generational divide indicates that beverage-only occasions are likely to increase as millennial and Gen Z consumers see increased spending power over time.
While brands have poured resources into beverage innovations like refreshers and dirty sodas in an effort to capture these afternoon occasions and woo diners with colorful, photogenic beverages, the market for those drinks may actually be limited. Only 19% of all consumers said they wanted more options in artisanal or crafted sodas. Baby boomers overindexed in their desire for dirty sodas, with 23% seeking a greater variety, compared to just 18% of Gen Z consumers.
Dirty sodas have not proven a universal traffic driver in recent months. McDonald’s added them in Q2, but the novelty of the items did not overcome their complexity, and the chain underperformed its overall same-store sales projections thanks to long ticket times.
Coffee remains the category in which the largest number of consumers (39%) desire greater variety, trailed by smoothies (30%) and lemonade (30%). Desire for coffee variety skews toward middle age, with 45% of Gen X consumers looking for a greater variety, compared to 33% of zoomers and 40% of boomers.
Major QSR brands have identified coffee as a potential site for menu innovation. In an interview last year, Yum Brands Chief Marketing Officer Ken Muench told Restaurant Dive that consumers are increasingly willing to try premium coffees from non-café concepts. That trend helped push Taco Bell to launch Coffee Chillers in late 2023, and to begin testing cold brew coffees earlier this year.
