I’ll have a zero, thanks

Monday, 17 February 2025

One in five New Zealanders consider whether low and zero alcohol drinks will be available when choosing where to dine out, according to a report from the Restaurant Association.

The DineFind 2025 dining trends report from the Restaurant Association shows an average 21% of respondents cite the availability of low and zero alcohol drinks in deciding where to eat.

The age groups least concerned about not being able to find non-alcoholic options are people aged 31-35 and 41-45. A quarter of those aged 46-50 rate it important, followed by almost a quarter of 51 to 55-year-olds.

Amongst those aged 18-25, 22% say they consider low or zero alcohol when deciding where to eat out.

Restaurant Association CE Marisa Bidois said the results reflected a broader global movement towards mindful drinking and offered businesses an opportunity to broaden their appeal to health conscious diners by expanding their alcohol-free options.

Living Sober’s Lotta Dann wasn’t surprised. “More people are waking up to the fact that drinking alcohol all the time isn't the best idea, despite what all the liquor industry's marketing and promotions tell us.

“New Zealand has been so saturated with booze for so long, finally we are moving away from that alcohol-centric culture. When I first quit drinking over 13 years ago, most venues only had water or orange juice available as alcohol alternatives.

“Now there are far more alcohol-free options which is great.There's still a way to go and alcohol still causes so much harm, but things are shifting and this report proves that.”

Auckland restaurant owner Michael Dearth, a fan of a “gorgeous hand-crafted” mocktail, is of the generation that was very much into drinking and drinking a lot.

While the growing preference for non-alcoholic drinks was a trend most venues were keeping an eye on, he was surprised at the numbers of “young kids” choosing not to drink.

“When I was 20, and that’s a long time ago, it was the young kids who were drinking. And that’s been a real issue for decades, that Kiwi mentality of drinking too much.”

He believed the move to drinking less paralleled the popularity of vegan-ism and vegetarianism, both of which had “exploded” over recent years.

An unofficial survey of several Wellington eateries found one award-winning restaurant withone non-alcoholic beer on its zero drinks menu, alongside ginger beer and Coke, another made its own a range of sodas and kombucha, which could be matched with its tasting menu, while the city’s new events centre Tākina offered apple or orange juice, plus Coke, Sprite, ginger beer and one choice of kombucha.