Festivities only manage an average haul.

(From Off Licence News)

As we all know, Christmas is the core sales period of the year for drinks suppliers and retailers. Many categories have a huge reliance on Christmas sales.

So I have taken this opportunity to look at GB off-trade retail Christmas alcoholic drinks trends in 2007 and the relative winners in retail and brands.

Of course, the year of 2007 has not been without incident and many problems for the trade and suppliers. In the summer - or should I say non-summer - the British monsoon arrived, coinciding with the English smoking ban on July 1.

The off -trade market reeled, more so the on-trade market, with the effect of the awful weather.

Whil e the on-trade's woes deepened as the year went on and the smoking ban bit hard, the off-trade did recover to post annual growth of 2 per cent in total alcoholic drinks sales value. Not spectacular when compared with grocers posting near 8 per cent growth in general merchandise value, but perhaps not bad after the summer collapse in all drinks sales versus summer 2006.

Of course we have to see the return of limited GB off-trade retail value drinks growth against a backdrop of falling stock markets, Northern Rock and sub-prime financial problems, highest-ever fuel prices, gradual but significant increases in food prices, increases in house repossessions and more companies going bust. The consumer is choosing to pay back debt, given we are told we are AGBP3 trillion in debt as consumers, plus banking confidence seems in the short term to have been undermined, so borrowing is restricted or non-existent.