Thrive Market headquarters at Fast Company Creativity Counter-Conference in Los Angeles.
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Thrive Market is officially depleted.
The online health food and grocery marketplace becomes the first major online grocer to remove all alcohol products from its subscription service. The company plans to completely replace this category with a lineup of more than 100 products across 20 brands, including non-alcoholic beer, wine, and mocktails.
“It’s time to really step up non-alcoholic and align with what we believe is a scientific shift in consumer attitudes towards health and wellness,” Thrive CEO Nick Green told CNBC. “Alcohol is not the future.”
The company said the move reflected changing consumer tastes and the growing popularity of “Dry January,” a time when people cut back on alcohol at the start of the new year. Green said Thrive first entered the wine market seven years ago, seeing an opportunity to “raise the health standards of the category,” but said the category’s decline has been a reason for its exit in recent years.
“What struck me was how quickly that change occurred under the influence of alcohol,” Green said. “There’s been a whole attitude change, kind of a paradigm shift, in how people look at alcohol. I think it used to be very socially acceptable, frankly just like cigarettes.”
According to a recent Gallup report, only 54% of U.S. adults consume alcohol, one of the lowest levels in decades. Meanwhile, U.S. beer sales have been declining at a mid-single-digit percentage year over year since June, according to the latest data from Nielsen’s Beer Scanner.
Research firm Bernstein said the data confirms a deeper consumer shift away from traditional beer, especially as drinkers explore everything from spirit-based, ready-to-drink cocktails to non-alcoholic alternatives.
“A broad decline in U.S. alcohol consumption is becoming clear,” Bernstein analyst Nadeem Sarwat said in a recent research note.
At the same time, the non-alcoholic beverage sector is also booming, with sales expected to reach $5 billion by 2028, according to alcohol data firm IWSR. More favorite brands AB InBev, Molson Coors and heineken We have entered the market.
Non-alcoholic beer photographed for food in Washington on March 11, 2024.
Scott Suchman Washington Post | Getty Images
Thrive said its data also reflects changes in the country. Searches for non-alcoholic options on ThriveMarket.com have steadily increased and accelerated over the past three months.
Named a CNBC Disruptor 50 company in both 2024 and 2025, Thrive has more than 1.7 million paid members across the U.S. and generated more than $700 million in revenue last year. The average shopper loads 15 items into a basket, so the company expects the proportion of those items to be alcohol-free will increase.
“People aren’t shopping at Thrive Market the way they shop on Amazon, where you order one thing and it ships separately,” Green said. “People are packing big boxes and looking to us for pantry essentials like what companies like Costco are looking at.”
The company also cited logistics as a motivation for the move. Alcoholic beverages can only be shipped to 39 states, but most non-alcoholic beverages can be shipped throughout the United States.
“People are basically switching to healthier alternatives,” Green said. “We can focus on being the place they want to innovate.”
