In Taylor Swift’s 2014 lead hit single “Shake It Off,” she sings about “players gonna play, play, play, play, play, And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate,” but “Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake — shake it off.” After a tumultuous year of lockdown, mask-wearing and restaurant and bar closures, beverage manufacturers, distributors and consumers also are “shaking off” the doldrums and hoping to return to normalcy.
Many beverage categories such as juice and juice drinks, still and sparkling water, beer, wine and spirits saw double- and even triple-digit surges in performance amid the pandemic. While carbonated soft drinks (CSDs) had previously lost ground to better-for-you (BFY) beverages such as bottled water, the $30.5 billion CSD category grew 11.4 percent in multi-outlets for the 52 weeks ending Jan. 23, according to data from New York-based Nielsen.