Trade News

→ The restaurant industry continues to struggle as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. According to the National Restaurant Association since March, more than 110,000 (17%) of the restaurants in the country have either closed permanently or long term. With 10,000 of those shutting down in the last three months.

→ With the shutdown/restrictions of on-premise accounts during the pandemic, keg-beer manufacturing in the US has also suffered. About 3.7 million barrels of beer were put into kegs in the first half of 2020, down from about 7.7 million a year earlier, data released in December by the U.S. Treasury Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau show. With more people drinking at home, beer in bottles and cans increased from 74.6 million barrels in the first half of 2019 to 76.7 million for the comparable period this year.

→ 2020 will end up as California’s smallest grape harvest in close to a decade due to smoke taint from wildfires, says Allied Grape Growers President Jeff Bitter, in an interview with Wine Searcher. The state lost an estimated 8% of its 2020 wine grapes. One upside for growers is that they are already getting better prices for their bulk wine from the 2020 vintage, while an excess of bulk wine in previous years had brought lower prices.