Consumption of packaged fruit juice in Australia has been in freefall in recent years, according to the latest findings from Roy Morgan Research.
In June 2012, 6.6 million survey respondents in Australia aged 14 or older (35.2 per cent of the population) reported drinking packaged fruit juice in any given seven days, consuming an average of 4.6 glasses each. In June 2016, this figure fell to 5.3 million people (26.9 per cent) drinking an average 4.3 glasses each: fewer people drinking fewer glasses.
Supermarket-branded juices are more widely consumed than any of the big brands. Some 6.2 per cent of the population say they drink them weekly, narrowly ahead of Golden Circle (5.8 per cent) and Berri (5.7 per cent). Daily Juice and Nudie complete the top five. However, of these brands, only Nudie has gained popularity since 2012, with weekly consumption almost tripling from 0.9 per cent to 2.4 per cent of the population.
Supermarkets are the most common place for buying packaged fruit juice: just over 5.2 million Australians say they buy it in supermarkets in an average four-week period (although this figure, too, has declined, from 5.6 million). In contrast, there has been a slight increase in juice-bar buyers. Just over 1.8 million people agree that ‘I often buy drinks from juice bars’, up from just under 1.6 million.
While Australia’s declining taste for packaged fruit juices is widely understood to be driven by growing awareness of the sugar contained in these beverages, Roy Morgan data suggests that juice bought from juice-bars does not have this stigma attached to it.
On the contrary, those who ‘often buy drinks from juice bars’ are markedly more likely than the average Australian to be concerned about their health, nutrition and weight. Compared with the population average, juice-bar customers are:
- 119 per cent more likely to ‘look for drinks with added ingredients that are good for my body’.
- 104 per cent more likely to agree that ‘the food I eat is all, or almost all, vegetarian.
- 96 per cent more likely to ‘buy drinks that boost my energy’.
- 91 per cent more likely to ‘avoid dairy foods whenever possible’.
- 54 per cent more likely to ‘try to avoid drinks that contain caffeine’.
