Author Anne Lamott is quoted for saying, “there is nothing as sweet as a comeback when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.” Although the hard cider category is not out of time, the segment is looking to make a comeback after another year of experiencing volume sales declines, but saw a slight uptick in dollar sales.
For the 52 weeks ending Jan. 28 in total U.S. multi-outlets, Chicago-based Circana data shows dollar sales for hard cider were $486 million, a 1.7% increase, while cases sales were down 2%. This is an improvement to last year when Beverage Industry’s 2023 Beer Report found hard cider dollar sales were down 3.4% and case sales were down 8.7% for the 52 weeks ending Jan. 1, 2023.