Alcohol spending in Canada grows 2.2 per cent

Ottawa, Ont. – Canadians spent $21.4 billion on alcoholic beverages in the last fiscal year, according to Statistics Canada, a 2.2-per-cent increase from a year ago.

Beer is still the number-1 alcoholic beverage in Canada, with sales of $9.1 billion for the year ended March 31, a slight drop from last year (0.1 per cent).

Domestic beer sales by volume dropped 1.7 per cent to two billion litres, while import beer sales fell 3.8 per cent to 300 million litres. Per capita sales were 78 L, down from 83.6 L in 2003. Statistics Canada says the drop is consistent with a longer-term trend away from beer.

By contrast, wine sales grew 4.9 per cent last year to $6.8 billion, while sales of spirits grew 2.9 per cent to $5.4 billion. Wine volume equalled 506.6 million L in 2013, a 3.9-per-cent jump, while spirits volume grew 2.7 per cent to 222.4 million L. On a per capita basis wine sales were 17.4 L, while spirits were 7.6 L.