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Texas Alcohol Index - June 2009

Published: 1 September 2009

Austin, TX: Virtue Group, a restaurant research company, announced today the release of the June TAI, the Texas Alcohol Index. The index is an aid to track the vitality and performance of the on-premise alcoholic beverage market in Texas. The index is released monthly, trailing two months. The TAI is intended to aid in assessing the vitality of the on-premise alcohol market in Texas and the entire full-service restaurant market as a whole.

Virtue Group Texas Alcohol Index: TAI

TAI June 2009: 175.50

TAI June 2008: 185.00

Percentage change from June 08: -5.14%
Inflation Rate for June 2008 - June 2009*: -1.43%

* Estimated inflation based on the change in the CPI-U for the period.

What is the TAI?

Monthly economic indicator for on-premise mixed beverage sales in the state of Texas. Monitors monthly gross alcohol sales relative to a base period: June 2000. Tracks growth or decline in the mixed beverage market sales from previous months and from the same month last year.

Summary

June's saw the worst month to month percent decline since record keeping. Throughout this year we have seen monthly declines. But the declines in those months were still able to preserve the gains of last year's sales. This June's gross sales, however, were in line with sales two years ago.

Year to date, sales are down 0.83% for the first six months verse the same period last year. After factoring in for the deflation, year to date sales are almost flat at 0.6%.

The Casual segment of the market was able to weather June much lighter than the Upscale segment. The Upscale segment had its worst performance on record this month with a decline of 12.31% in sales in June. This is partly attributable to a decrease in the number of upscale establishments: the number of upscale establishments peaked for June of last year.

There is a modest success story for the month, however in wine. Wine sales in Casual establishment actually gained market share in June. Their sales still saw a decline verse wine sales for the same month last year; but, they were able to grow market share verse beer for the month. This is noteworthy as typically the hot summer months (and we've had a record hot summer) should be associated with increased beer consumption.

Sales share in casual establishments for June 2009: Liquor 52.9% Beer: 39.2% Wine: 7.9%
Sales share in casual establishments for June 2008: Liquor: 52.3% Beer: 40.1% Wine: 7.7%