The 'Dry January' effect
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Festive celebrations at Christmas and New Year often involve increased alcohol consumption in many parts of the world. For some, that’s followed by a decision to take a break from drinking. It's become widely known as Dry January.
However, data shows that more people are choosing to reduce their alcohol intake all year round.
Alcohol-free drinks only make up about 1% of the total industry, but their popularity has risen quickly, and the vast majority is beer.
How influential is Dry January really in this growing trend? And how will the smaller producers, who pioneered the non-alcoholic sector, fare now that the drinks giants are producing their own zero percent products?
We examine the changing adult drinks market.
If you'd like to get in touch with the programme, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presented and produced by Imran Rahman-Jones
(Picture: Sonja Mitchell, founder of Jump Ship Brewing, based in Scotland, UK, holding a glass of non-alcoholic beer up in the air. Credit: Jump Ship Brewing)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.5 | It starts off there in the Mashhtun. |
| 0:11.7 | That's where the grain gets mixed with the hot water, |
| 0:16.0 | and essentially we extract all the flavour and colour from the grain. |
| 0:21.6 | I'm treading carefully among long, flexible pipes snaking between shiny metallic tanks, |
| 0:28.0 | being shown the brewing process for one of humanity's oldest known drinks, beer. |
| 0:33.3 | The bigger ones over there take 4,000 litres of liquid, |
| 0:36.5 | and the tanks for the conical bottoms are the ones where we're adding more hops. |
| 0:40.4 | We're at a brewery just outside Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, |
| 0:43.8 | and founder Sonia Mitchell is explaining how her beer is made. |
| 0:48.1 | But there's something different about the product here. |
| 0:51.0 | It's brewed with almost no alcohol. |
| 0:54.2 | The flavours are developing in the beer, so we'll be tasting it as it goes along till it |
| 0:58.7 | gets to the point where it's ready then to get packaged. |
| 1:03.1 | Sonia's company, Jump Ship, and many other brewers around the world have been gearing up for |
| 1:08.1 | a big few weeks as the dry January movement, that's going a month |
| 1:12.1 | without alcohol, has grown in recent years in countries such as the US, Japan, South Africa |
| 1:18.5 | and across Europe. |
| 1:23.3 | I'm Imran Rahman Jones and today on Business Daily, we're looking at the alcohol-free |
| 1:28.2 | drinks market and asking why it's boomed in the past few years around the world. |
| 1:33.3 | From the retailer operating in a Muslim country. |
| 1:36.4 | Venues who aren't allowed to serve alcohol, they have to be imaginative and they have to make |
... |
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