Social inclusion in a glass
with Laura Willoughby from Club Soda and Mindful drinking
Sharlafied Interviewed Laura at the Imbibe drinks fair in London this past July to hear what she is doing for the no-alcohol movement.
My interview with Laura
I'm here with Laura Willoughby, of Club Soda and Mindful Drinking. Laura, give me a little background on your story. How did this all come about? Did you found this company?
I did. I gave up drinking 10 years ago, and I set up Club Soda in 2015 to be like Weight Watchers but with booze; so we actually have a big community of people who are changing their drinking habits. And we provide behaviour change courses, to help people change, and we use behaviour change science to power all of that work that we do. And what happened really early on is, people started to complain to me about the fact there were no pubs or bars that served anything interesting, So it’s alright to tell people to drink less or go out and not drink, but if your only choice is alcohol or cola, it wasn't a very good option. So we did a piece of research in 2015 called nudging pubs. We looked at what behaviour change techniques would help pubs and bars.treat their non drinking customers better. And I guess it was very fortuitous, because in 2017, off the back of that, we got some extra funding to build a pub guide.
Who gives you funding for that?
We got funding for that from the night-time economy levy in the City of London.
What’s that?
In the UK, in big town centres like the City of London, Shoreditch and Manchester and so on, they added an additional levy for policing in the area. They're not allowed to spend all of that money just on policing. So we approached the council in Hackney to say “look, we think we can do something for you, keeping the night-time economy alive, just taking some of the alcohol out of it”. So we built that guide and then we decided to do our first festival in 2017, which is the first ever alcohol-free drinks festival anywhere called the Mindful Drinking festival. We did it in a small square of Bermondsey and it was packed from before we were officially opened until the minute we closed. We managed to scrape 20 brands together—Heineken had just launched an alcohol-free beer, Big Drop just launched, and Real Sparkling tea and they were all there. You know, it was really hard to find much else open beyond that.
We had our 10th festival in Brighton on 9-10 July and in the meantime, we started to talk to trade about improving stuff so I’ve started to do a number of speaking engagements about it. We became a hub for the emerging market, both in terms of consumers and also the brands. This year, instead of a festival, we did a three month pop-up alcohol-free shop in the West End, which went really well. So we're now looking to open up permanently. As you may know, there are alcohol-free shops and bars across the world. Now there's something like 15 shops in the States. There's one in Paris, there's one in Berlin. There's online stores in nearly every country now selling alcohol-free. In the UK, alcohol sales are stagnant but alcohol-free is growing. So our goal is to help people drink more mindfully and live well. And you know, we love working with the industry to make that happen. It's not about trying to force people to do things but showing them where there is financial benefit to them as a business to do that.
Ar London Wine Fair 2022. Left to right: George Hersey- Adam Handling Group, Freddie Cobb- Vagabond, Emily Shephard- The Ethicurean, Laura Willoughby, Josh Kelly- Manager of the Club Soda shop. photo: Club Soda Guide
Brighton Mindful Drinking Festival, July 2022 photo: Club Soda Guide
Well, I found that at this event your talk was packed, and I think maybe even two or three years ago, no one would have heard of it.
You’re right. Two or three years ago, I was doing the same talk and it wasn’t packed. You know, every time I think we might have peaked talking about alcohol-free I realise that we're only just starting.
And you said there's a lot of emerging brands-- how do you see these brands developing?
The UK is a hotbed of innovation; you'll notice that big brands are doing alcohol-free versions of their signature products. It gives people confidence to try and it also normalises not drinking, so they're really important. But you know, there's a whole swathe of new brands in the States, in every country there are people innovating. And, I guess what's more interesting to talk about is the fact that it bears being the hero of this category for obvious reasons. It's quicker to produce, technology is improved, the ABV is dropped and the quality of the products is really high. I think we're about to get into a period where wine becomes the thing that people talk about. So the wine drinking occasion might include a sparkling tea or it could be something else in that space, perhaps a blended product…
We took 16 brands to the London Wine Fair a couple of weeks ago. That event, when I tried to talk to them five years ago, “we're not interested “, but now everyone wants to understand what they serve to customers who are not drinking, because you don’t make any money from tap water.
Everleaf and Club Soda at the London Wine Fair. Photo: Anthony Upton 2022
And what about the cocktail side? It’s my perception that the bartenders really need to support this more. I think you'll get the public that wants a nice no or low alcohol cocktail, but maybe the bartenders are not on board as much.
I think it’s interesting that you've got a cross-generational shift in drinking, but you've got different behaviours within that. So young people aren't drinking as much to begin with. And already they were more interested in cocktails and less interested in wine. My age group, we’ve been smashing back bottles of wine for years. We need some help in cutting down and we and what we drink instead is really important. Then, if you've never drunk before, your taste buds are different and your expectations are different. So you've got lots of different behaviours within the mindful drinking category. And what I'd say is that bartenders generally are younger, they understand the younger demographic who are drinking less because it's their mates. They are less judgmental with their friends who've got all sorts of different needs from neurodiversity all the way through to making different health decisions or being vegan and so on. And they are actually in a good position to do it, but they're often trained by older people who still forget that. You know, it's not an alcohol only offer, it’s about a good experience, regardless of strength in your glass. It's really important that young bartenders get to articulate that they think there are some other options and make them a champion of the wider choice in your bar.
I live in Italy and I'm noticing that the choices for non-alcoholic cocktails are quite small. Some regions in Europe, like Scandinavia, are doing an entire cocktail list with a non-alcoholic version of each one and it seems like it's a lot more balanced.
It’s a northern vs southern Europe version, maybe? So certainly Scandinavia and Britain are now storming ahead. Germany and Spain have always had a good alcohol-free offering, but that did not happen by accident — the industry wanted it and the government supported it. So that shows you a little bit about what we might need to shift.
And, you know, it'd be really interesting to understand what the cultural decision making choices are, you know, are young people in Italy drinking less or not? And if they are, what are they doing instead? It'd be really interesting to see if they're absenting themselves from bars, which I don’t think they are. What are they doing and what would they really like? Yeah, there's certainly a few really good alcohol-free brands in Italy that are trying to serve that market and, and certainly outliers and some of the beers are really making their way there. I mean, when I stopped drinking I don’t know where I’d be without Crodino—it saved me from some really awful drinks, so in some aspects Italy has already had some really interesting bitter aperitif style drinks already.
And so where do you see your organization going through into the future?
Laura sipping Everleaf.
So for me, it's about our social aim, which is about helping people drink more mindfully but I want to be able to create spaces all across the UK where we can sample, sell, and give people the opportunity to try alcohol-free. It’s a big education point, because at the end of the day, alcohol sells itself. It’s a new product to market.
With alcohol-free, whether it's something that's got mood enhancing properties like Sentia, or something with CBD or whether it's an alcohol-free beer, there's a lot of education to do. Certainly, it's a big discussion in urban centres, but less so elsewhere. So we need to make sure that it becomes a bit more mainstream, but all of the indicators are moving in the right direction in terms of the sales and all of the social norms are shifting too, and it’s that sweet spot of normalising not drinking, having products that that fill that gap or give you an equal experience. And people are generally looking after their mental health: 43% of people who join Club Soda are saying that they've changed their drinking to improve their mental health. And so the fact that we're more open about mental health is also part of that same sort of “stars-aligning” in terms of the market for alcohol-free being important. That is to say that this isn’t a discussion about everyone suddenly becoming sober, it's about people picking and choosing when they drink; knocking out the incidental drinks that they may have alone or just with their partner and saving drinking for the time, and place and occasion. So that also has implications for the alcohol industry; for people willing to pay for exactly the right thing, a premium product, really well-made and well-served. People are about being more discerning about what it is they're drinking.
Laura with cofounders Jussi Tolvi (left) and Dru Jaeger (right) in their pop-up shop.
You mentioned human behavior before, about how people act together with one person in the group who is not drinking.
When I gave up drinking, I was really bullish, I would take my own drink into a pub in case they didn’t have one. I would have a little shampoo bottle of an alcohol-free spirit and pimp my own tonic. I wrote this little booklet called Rebel non drinking back in 2015 with tips on going out and not drinking. Then I realised that they didn’t like it because nobody wants to be a rebel, they want to be included. They don’t want to stand out and that's incredibly valuable. So whenever I talk to people, I say, don't go “Oh, well there’s no alcohol in it so there’s no value, why would you buy it?” It’s got no alcohol in it but you serve it to hydrate, and you serve it in a way and a place that is special, occasion led, an event, and it becomes a reward. We very much have alcohol as a reward category. Alcohol-free can become a reward if it is the right product served in the proper way. First of all it is a reward, it has value. Secondly, that in that bottle, every time you give an adult alcohol, or you pour them a pint of alcohol-free beer, they are holding a drink that looks and feels exactly like the drink their friends are drinking and what you've done is you've sold them social inclusion in a glass. And that is probably one of the most important things about alcohol-free and what they are paying for. They don't care if it has a duty stamp on it or not, if it's cheaper or not cheaper; that’s incidental, what they are doing is participating equally in a social experience. We care around those social experiences; it’s not about the strength in the glass. Venues should stop seeing these as being unusual, but as another dietary preference. It’s not about ABV, it's about serving a quality celebratory drink.
Thank you so much, Laura!
Where you can find Laura
Instagram and all other platforms: @joinclubsoda
Website: joinclubsoda.com