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Texas Alcohol Index - July 2009

Published: 29 September 2009

Austin, TX: Virtue Group, a restaurant research company, announced today the release of the July 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 July 2009: 180.46

TAI July 2008: 184.70

Percentage change from July 08: -0.34%
Inflation Rate for July 2008 - July 2009*: -2.10%

* 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: July 2000. Tracks growth or decline in the mixed beverage market sales from previous months and from the same month last year.

Summary

July sales were almost stagnate compared to July of last year. The beer segment grew over this period by 1.44%, the only segment to post a positive gain amongst the Beer, Wine, and Liquor segments. We believe all sales and beer sales in particular were heavily influenced by the heat wave experienced during the month.

Interestingly, between the summer months of June and July, June has been historically the stronger month in sales for the past 5 years. This year however, this trend reversed as July had sales 2.5% greater than June. Year to date, sales are down 0.66% verse the same seven months of 2008, however consumer prices still show moderate deflation for this period of 2.1, and so after factoring for deflation we see a year to date growth of 1.5%.