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Texas Alcohol Index - January 2009

Published: 26 March 2009

Austin, TX: Virtue Group, a restaurant research company, announced today the release of the January 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 January 2009: 176.01

TAI January 2008: 165.03

Percentage change from January 08: 6.56%
Inflation Rate for January 2008 - January 2009*: 0.03%

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

Summary

Considering the economic climate during this time of year, January's number are a positive surprise. The growth over the previous January was heavily driven by Beer Sales, which were up 7.6% over the same month last year. However, Wine Sales declined 4.5%, and Liquor Sales declined 1.9% over the period. Winter has typically been a time when wine sales were able to drive market-share growth.

In January 2008 Beer was 35.9% of all on-premise sales comprising the TAI, Wine and Liquor were 16.3% and 47.8%, respectively. This January, Beer sales compromised 36.2% and Wine and Liquor were 14.6% and 49.2% of the index, respectively.

Additionally, the number of establishments reporting sales in January of 2009 was 1% less than January 2008, indicating that consumers are spending more or more often this year despite fewer overall establishments available to them.