How Gen Z are impacting Guinness sales and supplies

Exceptional consumer demand is usually hailed as a great thing for businesses, but is not without its disadvantages when supply can’t keep up. 

Guinness maker Diageo has been facing this issue, forcing it to place limits on pub and bar purchases of the Irish-made stout across Britain.

Last week, it said it was managing allocations of kegs on a week-by-week basis after seeing a recent spike in demand.

Some pubs have been surviving customer demand by the “skin of their teeth”, while others have turned to local brewers to plug the stout gap.

A recent TikTok trend and so-called “Guinnfluencers” have been blamed for bolstering the drink’s popularity among Gen Z.

“Splitting the G” is a social media trend that sees people try to drink enough Guinness on their first sip that the line between the liquid and the foam ends up halfway through the G on a branded glass.

It’s become so popular that there’s an app that shows you if you have successfully “split the G” when drinking from an unbranded glass.

Even Mean Girls star Renee Rapp and her band have given it a go…

Social media expert Will Francis said St Patrick’s Day was when Google searches for the term “split the G” first spiked, with celebrities like Ed Sheeran and Niall Horan helping to boost it even further.

“Now, in December, searches have surged and it’s going more viral than ever,” he told Money.

“Google searches are currently around seven times what they were in December 2023. They are four times what they were in mid-September.”

Data expert at research platform GWI, Chris Beer, told Money the trend had “likely been a major factor in Guinness’s explosive growth” in the past year.

He has been analysing data that shows it has risen to become one of the UK’s favourite drinks.

“The biggest growth in Guinness drinkers has come among people who name TikTok as their favourite social platform, and frequent social media users,” he said.

“As TikTok accelerates and amplifies such trends through its algorithm, Guinness has effectively benefited from something like a modern-day version of the ice bucket challenge.

“There’s also been the rise of Guinnfluencers and Guinness reviewers like Schooner Scorer, who’ve helped boost the drink’s profile even more.”

GWI data shows that at this time last year, Guinness was most popular with 55 to 64-year-olds, but now it’s 25 to 35-year-olds who drink it most.

Young women are also one of the fastest-growing groups of Guinness drinkers – some may remember Kim Kardashian being spotted drinking a pint earlier this year.

“This is an important part of the Guinness trend – while it’s been driven through quite new forms of social media, the brand’s iconic history and design have helped it connect with a new audience that might not usually drink beer, but are interested in fashion and lifestyle,” Mr Beer added.

He said Guinness had historically been something of a “mid-table” beer, with the most popular brands being lagers like Peroni, Budweiser, Heineken, and Carling.

“But at the end of 2023, helped by social media, Guinness experienced a jump in popularity that put it top of the leaderboard, where it stayed until very recently,” he said.

“Since then, its popularity has started to fall back to something approaching regular levels, and it’s likely that we’re past the peak of the trend.”

While Gen Z may have helped to boost the stout’s popularity, it doesn’t mean they are the cause of the shortage.

Supply chains have long struggled with supply and demand strategies. Remember KFC running out of chicken in 2018?

Jonathan Barrett, CEO of tech company Kallikor, said even the biggest brands can be caught out by sudden changes in demands and logistic shortfalls.

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He said businesses needed to make sure they had the right technology in the right places to support inventory management, scenario planning and AI-led forecasting.

“Gen Z isn’t solely responsible for the Guinness shortage – or stout drought,” he said.

“More likely, it’s the result of a failure to integrate the technologies capable of properly accounting for peak periods, or forecasting the impact of successful marketing campaigns – like adopting the split the G trend that took over TikTok.”

He said the issues facing Guinness now were likely to get worse for businesses across the board as they continue to use “outdated supply chain systems that struggle to deal with changing demand”.

“When it comes to consumer brands, you only notice disruption in their supply chains when companies are unable to produce goods to keep pace with demand,” he explained.

“The fact this is a recurring issue suggests that even the biggest brands have room for improvement in their forecasting and demand planning capabilities.

“That’s where more widespread adoption of AI tools will make a huge difference. This will be the only way businesses can keep pace with shifting trends in supply and demand.”