It’s time to raise a glass and cheers to another stellar year for the beverage market. According to preliminary data from New York-based Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC), the U.S. liquid refreshment market (LRB) saw a retail sales increase of 3.8 percent in 2018 while volume was up 2.2 percent for fiscal year.
Citing a variety of reasons — bottled water’s robust growth and continued economic growth — BMC reports that LRB volume neared 33.9 billion gallons while dollar sales were just shy of $180 billion. The market research firm credited this performance to growth within the niche/emerging beverage categories as well as positive performance from many of the established beverage markets.