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It is no longer unusual to see queues at convenience stores across Britain and the pandemic has driven people to shop locally and less often, supplemented with online delivery orders.

The assumption when a drinks brand relaunches with a new look is that it’s to sell more stuff.

Thankfully someone came up with a name more glamorous than “chickpea water” and the versatile vegan ingredient aquafaba was born.

The UK economy is suffering and there is talk of a Covid double dip recession, which paints a grim picture for the future of retail.

Abel & Cole has been delivering organic food to British households for 30 years, and its ethos of offering good quality organic food and drink from ethical growers and producers, made in sustainable ways, is probably now more relevant to consumers than ever before.

If Covid-19 has taught us anything about how Brits respond to a crisis it’s this: when the proverbial hits the fan, we reach for the wine.

The significant shift in shopper behaviour is an ongoing trend and the switch to online shopping continued over the summer, even when national lockdown measures ended.

The changing drinks landscape has led Halewood Wine & Spirits in a new direction and precipitated a name change.

Helen Mulholland has worked at Irish whiskey distiller Bushmills for 27 years, having started with an apprenticeship placement as part of her university course.

Earlier this year Laura Riches and Laura Rosenberger joined forces when they spotted a gap in the market for a new approach to the bag-in-box format for wine.

When the on-trade giant Bibendum Wine saw its sales come to an abrupt halt in March this year, the company naturally turned itsattention to its specialist retail business, Walker & Wodehouse, but it required a huge effort to refocus the business in a short time.

Has Brewdog come of age? The Aberdeenshire brewer founded in 2007 has consistently put industry noses out of joint with stunts which it insists represent a refusal to play by the traditional rules of beer marketing – while generating great publicity both for itself and the craft brewing scene as a whole.

Following lockdown developments in wine consumption, the spirits giant has new plans for its off-trade presence.

The search continues for improved sustainable alternatives to traditional wine bottles, and younger consumers are proving very receptive.

The average UK household throws away £355.68 worth of food each year, which adds up to a shocking £9.7 billion annually across the country.

The market for in-home consumption of alcohol saw rapid growth across the board during lockdown and, with people being forced to stay at home, online was a natural beneficiary.

Over the past few months consumer trends have changed dramatically, with shops reporting a surge in demand for flour, pasta makers and bicycles alongside a drive towards online and convenience shopping.

Virtual crocheting, Zoom pilates and online museum tours are things we swiftly came to expect from 2020 and there appear to be no limits to the activities consumers can access via a screen.

Hervé Deschamps has held the prestigious title of cellar master at Maison Perrier-Jouët for 37 years and is the seventh cellar master in the company’s 209-year history.

It’s not very often that a new category emerges in drinks.

Entertainment is now more about Netflix and virtual tastings than family meals out and visits to the pub, but whisky could be in a good position to tap into our new ways of socialising.

Online has naturally been a popular channel in lockdown, with many opting for home delivery services for the first time. Recent data shows online retail sales have soared to a 10-year high but within this, other trends have started to emerge.

Leigh Norwood opened Favourite Beers in 2010 and at the time it was the only specialist beer and cider venue in Gloucestershire. In this latest feature in this series of interviews with beer shops across the UK, Norwood talks to DRN about how the business is operating and adapting during the pandemic:

James Hickson has two We Brought Beer shops in the London area, one in Balham and the other in Tooting market. In the latest in this series of interviews with bottle shops across the UK, Hickson talks to DRN about how the business is coping during the pandemic:

Independent beer shops across the country have found ways to adapt their businesses in order to still operate during the lockdown period, while keeping staff and customers safe. 

Off-trade beer sales are soaring but the closure of the on-trade from March 23 this year has had a massive impact on craft beer sales and breweries.

The UK has now been living with lockdown measures for more than four weeks and over this time off-trade wine sales – and online drinks deliveries – have surged massively, while the focus on finding “earth-friendly” solutions looks set to play a much greater role in our future. 

Mandy Stevens is an experienced wine educator and she uses this skill in her role as a part-time wine training manager at Enotria & Coe and also for her own business Sipologist Social, which operates wine tasting workshops around London.   

One of the most remarkable recent success stories in wine, the rise of rosé has been one of the biggest shake-ups of the still wine category for generations. From 2010 to 2015, Nielsen reported exceptional year-on-year growth, driven largely by brands such as