Beverages News and Trends

Let the beverage products you serve identify you as a trendsetter
By Denise Brown No matter what beverage brands you use or which beverage companies you use as beverage vendors, you can set your restaurant apart from the competition by simply knowing what beverages are popular and offering them to your customers.

By following beverages news and trends you can develop a good sense of what’s selling in other markets before you even make the investment in time and energy to change your beverage menu. As you look at new beverage products, there are some trends to consider:

1. The continuing love of all things coffee. Adding specialty coffees is a good moneymaker.

2. The popularity of water. Bottled waters are popular beverages and you can easily add the new flavored waters and vitamin waters to your beverage menu.

3. The development of new beers and other alcoholic beverages. You can create your own house specialty mixed drinks or stock beers from microbreweries.

Sign up for newsletters about beverages

Whether the newsletter provider is one of your beverage distributors or an independent source of information, you can gather many ideas about news and trends within the beverage industry.
Try:  Manitowoc Food Service Group offers a free newsletter. As you read about the drink industry, you can use its newsletter as a guide to beverages. News and trends are major topics in each monthly issue. Sign up for the Lawson newsletters to track beverages news and trends from this industry leader.  For breaking news on the beverage industry, try BevNET.com, Progressive Grocer or Beverage World.

Read articles and white papers about beverages

As you read informative articles, you can find new ways to serve beverages in your establishment. You can also find solid business tips to help you make more money from your investment in your beverage equipment.
Try:  Read news and trends about alcoholic beverages at FoodReference.com. From seasonal beers to flavored vodkas, you can find information about what’s new in the alcoholic beverage industry. ChowBaby.com has several articles about beverages on its website. Scroll down the page to find the selection of titles, including information about new beverage products, as well as ways to increase beverage sales for your business.

Find blogs that discuss beverages

Quite often blogs are more current with news and trends within the beverage industry. Find blogs that discuss the types of beverages that you serve to your customers.
Try:  The REthink Wine Blog by the Inertia Beverage Group offers insight into news and trends in this sector of the alcoholic beverage industry. BevBlog.net provides news and trends for beverage distributors, as well as drink manufacturers.

• Be sure to stay in touch with the distributor of the beverage brands you offer in your restaurant. He should be able to keep you informed of news and trends within his business. Another valuable contact person is the delivery person. He should also have a good idea of what products are selling and what products aren't.