Strongbow tops the list as best-selling cider for another year

While Strongbow kept the top spot in The Drinks List – top brands to stock in 2022​, its sister brand Strongbow Dark Fruit also retained second place. The original variant experienced a fall in volume sales of 28% to 230,277 hectolitres (HL) and value fell by 26.1% to £139.5m.

Strongbow Dark Fruit saw similar proportions of sales decline with a drop of 29.5% to 158,335HL in volume and 27.6% to £102.7m in value.

Third-placed Thatchers Gold also didn’t move from the previous year but saw a decrease in volume sales of from 166,054HL to 135,806HL (18.2%) and value from £105.2m to £86m (18.2%).

Places retained​

Furthermore, Magners Original and Stowford Press also retained their places from last year – fourth and fifth respectively.

The former saw sales dip in terms of volume by about a quarter (25.3%) from 81,728HL and value by 24% to £39.3m.

The latter had similar percentages with a fall in volume sales of about a fifth (19.1%) to 43,040HL and the same for value (19.1%) to £37.3m.

Thatchers Haze, which was a new entry last year, rose up the list from tenth to seventh and was the only brand to experience a rise in sales.

Flavoured ciders​

Volume sales increased by 7% to 42,662HL and value also saw a jump up by 9.3% to £28.3m when compared to last year.

Flavoured ciders entered the list at sixth with Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime, which had a volume decrease of 19.1% to 43,040HL and value was down the same percentage (19.1%) to £37.3m.

Rekorderlig Strawberry & Lime shifted slightly up from ninth to eighth this year and had the smallest drop in sales (4.9% to 39,157HL in volume and 4.5% to £34.2m in value).

Kopparberg Mixed Fruits volume sales fell by 25.9% for value to 36,716HL and in value terms, by 24.8% to £29.6m meaning it dropped a little from number eight to 10 this year.

Carling Black Fruit Cider also travelled down the list from sixth place last year to ninth this year and sales figures for the brand were down by 29.3% to 38,657HL for volume and by 28.9% in value to £23.7m.

All ciders in the top 10, bar one, saw a drop in volume and value figures but not more than a third. Thatchers Haze was the only brand to see figures up with a 7% rise to 42,662HL in volume and 9.3% increase to £28.3m in value.

• All data provided by CGA for the 12 months to 9 October 2021​​