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Texas Alcohol Index - March 2009

Published: 2 June 2009

Austin, TX: Virtue Group, a restaurant research company, announced today the release of the March 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 March 2009: 189.08

TAI March 2008: 192.98

Percentage change from March 08: -2.02
Inflation Rate for March 2008 - March 2009*: -0.38%

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

Summary

March sales declined in the largest percent change seen since Hurricane Ike late last year. The deflationary effects of the dollar over the period however did reduce real losses slightly. The segment trends continue this year, with wine experiencing the brunt of the decline: On-Premise Wine sales were off $5 million throughout the state or 10% from their March 2008 numbers. Liquor saw a 1.4% decline over the same month last year, and Beer was even.

Since November 2008, the number of establishments reporting have averaged a 1% growth over the same period a year ago. In most of 2008, for comparison, this number averaged 3.5%. In February and March 2009, however we have started to see growth above 1% again. We believe this indicates that we can expect most growth in the industry to come from same store sales in the next few months as the pace of new openings has cooled and is only now showing signs increasing slowly.