CGA: dark rum rises 5% in GB on-trade

Dark rum is experiencing a surge in popularity in Great Britain’s on-trade with its value increasing by 5% last year.

CGA’s latest On Premise Measurement Solution (OPMS) data for 2023 revealed rum trends in Britain’s bars, pubs and restaurants.

CGA noted that dark rum is now valued at £190.6 million (US$238.8m) with the subcategory’s market share increasing from 16.4% to 17.6%.

Meanwhile, white rum is also rising but not at the same rate as dark rum. White rum saw its volume share grow by 0.5% to 22.8% of all rum sold in Great Britain’s on-trade.

Golden rum still dominates the market with a nearly 60% share, despite slightly losing to both dark and white rum, CGA highlighted.

The biggest-selling channel in the on-trade, mainstream outlets, holds a 67.3% volume share of all rum sold in the market. This figure has seen a slight uptick of 0.5% over the past year.

Premium rum also rose slightly, gaining 1.5% of volume share at the expense of standard-priced rum.

Pubs and hotels are experiencing major gains in rate of sale (Ros), while other premium outlets seem to be experiencing significant losses, CGA found.

Premium pubs grew its volume share of rum by 1.5% last year, remaining the primary premium outlet for the category with nearly 47% of total volumes in the on-trade.

Hotels were the third-largest premium outlet for rum, representing 12.6% of volumes after a year-on-year rise of 1.1% in volume share.

Sales of rum in Great Britain’s on-trade reached £1.1 billion (US$1.4bn) in value in the 12 months to December 2023, overtaking whisky for the second year in a row.

Data from CGA by Nielsen IQ showed a 2% decline for rum, which holds a 14% share of all spirits sales.