Estimating recent trends in alcohol sales in the United Kingdom from alcohol duty revenue.

Background and aims: The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to significant changes in individual-level alcohol consumption and a sharp increase in heavy drinking in the United Kingdom (UK). More recently, high rates of inflation, the resulting 'cost of living crisis' and reforms to alcohol taxation have affected the affordability of alcohol, but little is understood about how these changes have impacted on alcohol sales and consumption. We aimed to measure recent trends in alcohol sales by assessing changes in alcohol duty revenue collected by the UK government since 2020.

Methods: We used published data on UK alcohol duty revenue to model trends from 2010 to 2019. We forecasted these trends through to January 2025 using a novel statistical approach and compared these forecasts with observed receipts. Measurements included monthly inflation-adjusted alcohol duty receipts received by the UK Treasury in pounds sterling for beer, cider, spirits and wine.

Results: During the pandemic, alcohol duty receipts fell during lockdowns and rose as restrictions were subsequently lifted. Since 2022 alcohol duty receipts have been consistently statistically significantly below the historical trend, with a cumulative deficit of £10.3bn (-12.3%). This has not been uniform across beverage types, with a gradually increasing deficit in wine receipts and a comparable deficit in spirits receipts that began sharply in late 2022 compared with smaller deficits for beer and cider. The reforms to the alcohol duty system in August 2023 do not appear to have substantially affected these trends.

Conclusions: The 'cost of living crisis' in 2022/2023 appears to have been associated with a fall in alcohol sales in the United Kingdom relative to the pre-pandemic trend. The magnitude of this fall differs by beverage type, indicating that wine and spirits drinkers may have changed their behaviour more than beer and cider drinkers.