Key takeaways:
- Moderation is reshaping social occasions, with people drinking less but gathering more often.
- Snacks are moving centre stage, from cheese boards to protein bites, helping define the experience.
- More frequent, low-alcohol occasions are creating steady, year-round growth opportunities for snack brands.
For the drinks industry, the low/no alcohol trend has been a mild identity crisis. For snacks, though, it’s starting to look like a windfall. Because people haven’t stopped socialising. They’ve just stopped building entire evenings around what’s in their glass. The after-work drink is now an after-work something – something that stretches out, slows down and almost always involves food.
The numbers hold it up. The UK low- and no-alcohol market is already worth more than £400m and still climbing, according to IWSR and Kantar data. Globally, IWSR expects the no-alcohol segment to grow at around 7% a year through to 2028. BeverageDaily has described the category as being in a ‘transformative period of growth’, with both new and returning consumers driving demand.
Gen Z tends to get the credit, and not without reason. They’re the ones most visibly stepping back from alcohol or at least treating it more casually. But they’re not the only ones. Older consumers are cutting back, too – less dramatically, perhaps, but just as consistently. Better sleep, clearer mornings, fewer reasons to overdo it midweek.
What that creates isn’t a void, however. The social occasion is still there, just less centred on what’s being poured and more on what’s being shared.
The table takes over
Once the drink stops being the focal point, attention drifts elsewhere. And usually, it lands on the table.
That’s where certain snacks are finding new relevance. Cheese and crackers, for one, have slipped into a more everyday role. Not quite dinner, not quite a treat – just something to put down that keeps people hovering. Olives, dips, flatbreads and the odd bit of charcuterie follow the same logic. Easy, familiar and built for picking at over time.
Crisps have quietly upgraded themselves to keep up. Thicker, crunchier, more heavily seasoned. The sort of thing you open with the intention of sharing, even if that intention doesn’t always hold. Pair them with a dip and they start to feel less like filler and more like part of the plan.
Then there’s the more self-conscious end of the spectrum. Nuts, seeds, roasted pulses, protein snacks – all the things that signal you’re being ‘good’, or at least trying to be. They sit neatly alongside alcohol-free drinks, reinforcing the idea that this is a slightly more balanced way to spend an evening.
Kantar analysts say moderation is becoming part of everyday drinking behaviour rather than a short-term reset. Which, translated, means this isn’t just a Dry January performance. It’s a Tuesday night habit. And habits, as ever, are where the real volume sits.
Doing more of the work
There’s a subtle shift happening in what snacks are expected to do. They’re no longer just there in case someone gets hungry. They’re helping to carry the occasion.
Without alcohol doing all the heavy lifting, flavour matters more. You see it in sharper seasonings, more layered profiles, textures that hold attention. Snacks are being designed to last a bit longer, to be returned to, rather than finished and forgotten.
There’s also a clear overlap with the broader moderation mindset. As one IWSR analyst told BeverageDaily, consumers choosing no-alcohol options are often making wider lifestyle choices at the same time. That tends to spill over into food – not necessarily less indulgent, but more considered.
At the same time, people aren’t exactly cutting back across the board. If anything, they’re shifting where they spend. One less drink can easily become a slightly better snack. That’s where premium crisps, bakery bites, seasoned nuts and ‘elevated’ sharing formats come into their own.
Retailers are starting to reflect this, placing snacks closer to alcohol-free drinks or building displays around the idea of an occasion rather than a category. It’s not being shouted about, but it doesn’t need to be. The behaviour is already there.
And it’s spreading. Gen Z may have nudged things in this direction, but moderation is no longer generational. Different age groups, different motivations – same end result. Less emphasis on alcohol, more emphasis on everything else that makes the moment feel like something.
Which brings it back to snacks. They haven’t suddenly become more important on paper. But in practice, they’ve moved up the pecking order.