Booze economy going strong despite tight budgets
Lewanika Timothy | Wednesday April 15, 2026 10:43
Recent full year results published by the country’s leading brewery confirm one fact that researchers have always known: when times get tough, people drink or rather Batswana drink.
The full year 2025 financial results for Sechaba Brewery Holdings Limited (SBHL) show that business has been positive and expanding despite economic headwinds. The group posted a 19% jump in net profit, driven largely by stronger returns from its associate, Kgalagadi Breweries Limited (KBL), whose sales are now approaching closer to the P3 billion mark.
The bumper results come through at a time when retailers across the country have decried slowing consumer spending. Retailers have reported that consumer purchase baskets are getting smaller, with most of them dumping luxuries in favour of no name retail brands, demonstrating the hard-hitting effect of the economic slowdown.
Despite this, alcohol remains an economic outlier alongside sports betting, which has secured its place as a non-negotiable line item in many budgets. Industry research shows that it’s not that people are going out more and drinking more, but rather they are buying alcohol at cheaper options but still at the same volumes.
SBHLs results reflect this shift: while volumes at both KBL and Coca-Cola Beverages Botswana (CCBB) softened, profitability improved on the alcohol side. KBL managed to grow earnings through tighter cost controls, leaner operations, and a favourable product mix, selling the right products at the right margins to the right consumers.
“SBHL achieved a 19% increase in net profit after tax, primarily driven by a 17% increase in the share of profit from associates, which rose from P338.6 million to P396.2 million,” the holding company’s directors noted. “This performance was realised despite reduced volumes across both associates. “KBL recorded improved profitability compared to the prior year, mainly attributable to operational efficiencies, reduced administrative expenses, and a favourable product mix. “CCBB’s profit after tax declined by 40%, mainly due to higher operating costs including maintenance, fuel, utilities and increased provisions for credit losses.”
Researchers have long observed that alcohol consumption behaves differently from most goods during economic downturns. In some cases, it even moves in the opposite direction to economic growth. As unemployment rises and incomes fall, drinking patterns don’t always decline but rather they evolve.
One explanation lies in time, as working hours shrink and unemployment rises, people find themselves with more idle time and alcohol often fills that space. Another explanation is more personal and perhaps more troubling. Alcohol, as researchers note, is often used as a form of self-medication.
Financial stress, job uncertainty, and emotional strain are other obvious push factors toward drinking as a coping mechanism. In countries like Botswana where unemployment has been on a surge, especially among young people, it is no strange occurrence that alcohol consumption is on the rise.
In downturns, this behaviour tends to intensify, particularly among those already vulnerable.
The latest findings from the Botswana Multi-Topic Household Survey (BMTHS) 2024-25 highlight persistent structural challenges in the country’s labour market, particularly affecting those aged between 15 and 35 years.
The report noted an increase in discouraged job seekers, a term that refers to people who did not do some work in the reference period and were available to work but were not actively seeking employment in the reference period. These persons usually stop looking for work because they have given up as they had no success in finding a job, hence the term “discouraged”.
According to the survey, the youth unemployment rate increased from 25.1% in 2015-16 to 28.9% in 2024-25. The burden remains disproportionately higher amongst young females, whose unemployment rate stands at 30.7%, compared to 27.2% for young males.
Historians note that alcohol consumption in Botswana did not begin with commercial breweries. For generations, bojalwa ja Setswana was brewed for cultural ceremonies like weddings and Setswana community rituals. It was shared, not sold, and deeply embedded in social life.
The shift to a cash economy changed everything as incomes formalised and urbanisation took hold, with alcohol moving from communal tradition to commercial product. Drinking spread across demographics, from men sitting in a Kgotla in rural settings to younger consumers in urban centres.
This change meant that what was once occasional and ceremonial became frequent and transactional.
Today, Botswana ranks among the higher alcohol-consuming nations in the region, with per capita consumption estimated at 8.4 litres of pure alcohol for those aged 15 and above. That legacy, combined with current economic pressures, is helping sustain the “booze economy.”
Even within SBHL’s numbers, the contrast is striking. While KBL improved profitability, Coca-Cola Beverages Botswana saw profits fall sharply, dragged down by rising costs fuel, maintenance, utilities and growing credit losses as consumers struggle to keep up with payments. Soft drinks are feeling the pinch but alcohol is not, at least not in the same way.
Researchers in the United States have noted that in times of economic decline the boozers market tends to bifurcate. More rational drinkers tend to approach cheaper stores to purchase alcohol while heavy drinkers plunge deeper into more drinking. Away from the bars and nightclubs, consumption is increasingly moving into home
“For instance, since drinking behaviour and the associated effects are not necessarily linear, light and moderate drinkers may initiate a greater proportional change in their consumption relative to heavy drinkers,” researchers noted
Economists and public health experts alike warn that rising alcohol consumption during downturns often comes with hidden costs mainly from deteriorating mental health to increased social strain. International studies have linked economic stress with higher rates of harmful drinking behaviours, as well as broader public health risks.
In Botswana, where both unemployment pressures and alcohol consumption are already elevated, that risk may continue to take a worse turn.