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Vancouver raises the bar for alcohol-free drinks – CBC.ca

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The recently launched Mocktails store and The Drive Canteen, a sober snack bar, are among the Vancouver businesses responding to a growing demand for non-alcoholic beverages.

Mocktails owner Angela Hansen said her “troubled relationship with alcohol” inspired her to stop drinking a year ago and look for alternative options. 

She found a variety of non-alcoholic drinks available online, but few places with a physical presence in the city and so in mid-March, she opened Mocktails, which offers zero-proof and dealcoholized wines, spirits and other drinks. 

“We need a place dedicated to this,” she said. “Whether you’re sober-curious, choose not to drink or don’t want to drink as much, it doesn’t mean that you want to miss out on the socialization and the experiences that everyone else is having.”

Hansen and experts in the field said an increased awareness regarding the health impacts of alcohol has created a shift in demand for non-alcoholic products and specialized stores. 

Consumer data provider Statista said the non-alcoholic beer market in Canada is expected to be worth about $400 million in revenue this year and is seen growing annually by 5 per cent. Meanwhile, the United States saw $565 million in sales for non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits at off-premise locations like grocery stores last year, up 35 per cent compared with 2022, according to market research firm Nielsen IQ.

Angela Hansen decided to open Mocktails, a non-alcoholic liquor store, after struggling to find a store with a large variety of options in Vancouver. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

Victoria-based Adam Sherk is a senior scientist and special policy advisor with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), an Ottawa-based, non-governmental organization that focuses on providing national leadership on substance use.

Sherk said younger generations are “drinking less than ever before.”

“That generation of youth is kind of leading the cultural change around alcohol,” he said. 

“My guess would be that alcohol use will, on a per-person basis, go down quite modestly over time.”

In January 2023, the CCSA released guidelines stating no amount of alcohol is safe to consume and it recommended no more than two drinks a week. Sherk, who contributed to the Guidance on Alcohol and Health report, thinks that prompted many Canadians to rethink their health choices. 

He said Canadians consume an average of 13.3 drinks a week and close to 10 litres a year – nearly twice as much as the annual global average – which can lead to a higher risk of developing several types of cancer, liver cirrhosis and heart disease. 

Doug Stephen, owner of The Drive Canteen, says last year’s alcohol consumption guidelines report brought in a range of new customers looking to incorporate non-alcoholic drinks into their lifestyles. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

Doug Stephen, co-owner of The Drive Canteen, said the report’s numbers were shocking and led to a shift in the crowd coming into his store in Vancouver. 

“We’ve seen a lot of people who still drink, but want to drink a lot less and … mix in some non-alcoholic zero proof stuff with their regular drinking habits,” he said, also noting a rise in younger customers with “a very different view on alcohol.”

“We’re going to see more and more proliferation of this [industry], especially as people want to talk about things like mental health and physical health.”

Stephen said when he opened the snack bar in 2021 following his journey with sobriety, there were no other stores around carrying a mix of non-alcoholic drinks.

The Drive Canteen has a variety of unique snacks, convenience store treats, and a catalog of non-alcoholic beverages, which is now nearly 50 per cent of its monthly sales, he said. 

“We initially started with 100 to 200 square feet … we are now almost at 1,000 square feet dedicated to non-alcoholic [drinks] and as each week passes gradually more and more [products] take over.”

Mocktails, a non-alcoholic liquor store, recently opened in Vancouver. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

For customer Charlene Prevatt, 42, the variety of non-alcoholic options allow her to drink “for the flavour of alcohol, not just for the feeling.”

“I love the ability to pair my food with my drinks, but also having something that I don’t have to worry about the next day,” she said, adding typical liquor stores have “maybe four [options] on a good day.”

Hansen said customers come in from as far away as Nanaimo, about 110 kilometres north of Victoria on Vancouver Island, and that he hopes non-alcoholic stores and drinks will become commonplace.

“I’m not here to try and convert anybody. I just want to educate people and give them options other than alcohol,” she said.

“I think that opens it for other people to be more receptive to doing that for themselves and looking maybe at their own relationship with alcohol.”

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Netflix’s subscriber growth slows as gains from password-sharing crackdown subside

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Netflix on Thursday reported that its subscriber growth slowed dramatically during the summer, a sign the huge gains from the video-streaming service’s crackdown on freeloading viewers is tapering off.

The 5.1 million subscribers that Netflix added during the July-September period represented a 42% decline from the total gained during the same time last year. Even so, the company’s revenue and profit rose at a faster pace than analysts had projected, according to FactSet Research.

Netflix ended September with 282.7 million worldwide subscribers — far more than any other streaming service.

The Los Gatos, California, company earned $2.36 billion, or $5.40 per share, a 41% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 15% from a year ago to $9.82 billion. Netflix management predicted the company’s revenue will rise at the same 15% year-over-year pace during the October-December period, slightly than better than analysts have been expecting.

The strong financial performance in the past quarter coupled with the upbeat forecast eclipsed any worries about slowing subscriber growth. Netflix’s stock price surged nearly 4% in extended trading after the numbers came out, building upon a more than 40% increase in the company’s shares so far this year.

The past quarter’s subscriber gains were the lowest posted in any three-month period since the beginning of last year. That drop-off indicates Netflix is shifting to a new phase after reaping the benefits from a ban on the once-rampant practice of sharing account passwords that enabled an estimated 100 million people watch its popular service without paying for it.

The crackdown, triggered by a rare loss of subscribers coming out of the pandemic in 2022, helped Netflix add 57 million subscribers from June 2022 through this June — an average of more than 7 million per quarter, while many of its industry rivals have been struggling as households curbed their discretionary spending.

Netflix’s gains also were propelled by a low-priced version of its service that included commercials for the first time in its history. The company still is only getting a small fraction of its revenue from the 2-year-old advertising push, but Netflix is intensifying its focus on that segment of its business to help boost its profits.

In a letter to shareholder, Netflix reiterated previous cautionary notes about its expansion into advertising, though the low-priced option including commercials has become its fastest growing segment.

“We have much more work to do improving our offering for advertisers, which will be a priority over the next few years,” Netflix management wrote in the letter.

As part of its evolution, Netflix has been increasingly supplementing its lineup of scripted TV series and movies with live programming, such as a Labor Day spectacle featuring renowned glutton Joey Chestnut setting a world record for gorging on hot dogs in a showdown with his longtime nemesis Takeru Kobayashi.

Netflix will be trying to attract more viewer during the current quarter with a Nov. 15 fight pitting former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson against Jake Paul, a YouTube sensation turned boxer, and two National Football League games on Christmas Day.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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