Nonalcoholic Beverage Market Size: $52.4 Billion in Manufacturers' Receipts #
US soft drink, bottled water and ice manufacturers took in $52.4 billion (Census Annual Integrated Economic Survey, 2024), the figure Census publishes for soft drink and ice manufacturing (NAICS 31211). Soft drinks are the large majority of it, bottled water most of the rest, and ice a small share of receipts spread across a large number of small plants.
Read it as what leaves the factory, not what consumers spend. Census receipts here are manufacturers' sales. A retail figure for the same drinks adds wholesale and retail margins and imports, and leaves out exports, so it measures something else. When two sources quote very different sizes for "the nonalcoholic beverage market", check which of the two they measure before comparing them (see how to calculate market size).
Who Makes Nonalcoholic Beverages: Bottlers, Water Plants and Concentrate Makers #
The buyer side of this market is a few hundred companies, not thousands, and many of them run more than one plant. Soft drink plants are large operations by manufacturing standards; bottled water plants are smaller, and ice plants smaller again.
The brand side of soft drinks is counted in a different industry. Census classifies the makers of "flavoring syrup drink concentrates and related products for soda fountain use or for the manufacture of soft drinks" in flavoring syrup and concentrate manufacturing (NAICS 311930), not in soft drinks. A brand owner that sells concentrate to bottlers and the bottler that fills the cans sit in two separate federal industries.
For a supplier, co-packer or equipment vendor researching this market, the practical reading is that each customer is a large account and there are not many of them, so the sales question is account coverage rather than reach.
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Where Each Nonalcoholic Drink Is Counted #
If you are researching one category of drink, the federal figure for it is the total of the industry that category sits in. These are the categories a researcher is most likely to be sizing, and where Census counts each one:
| Category | Where Census counts it |
|---|---|
| Carbonated soft drinks, sparkling water and club soda | Soft drink manufacturing (NAICS 312111) |
| Bottled iced tea, fruit drinks and ades | Soft drink manufacturing (NAICS 312111), as noncarbonated soft drinks |
| Bottled water, still or naturally carbonated | Bottled water manufacturing (NAICS 312112) |
| Packaged ice | Ice manufacturing (NAICS 312113) |
| Soft drink concentrates and fountain syrups | Flavoring syrup and concentrate manufacturing (NAICS 311930) |
| Canned juices | Fruit and vegetable canning (NAICS 311421), with jams, sauces and pickles |
| Frozen juices, ades and drink concentrates | Frozen fruit, juice and vegetable manufacturing (NAICS 311411) |
| Roasted coffee, coffee and tea concentrates, herbal tea | Coffee and tea manufacturing (NAICS 311920) |
| Plant-based milk | Fluid milk manufacturing (NAICS 311511), as "dairy substitutes from soybeans and other nondairy substances" |
| Powdered drink mixes (except chocolate, coffee, tea or milk based) | All other miscellaneous food manufacturing (NAICS 311999) |
| Nonalcoholic beer | Breweries (NAICS 312120) |
Placements follow the Census industry definitions and the product lines Census publishes for soft drink plants. A plant is classified by its main product, so a juice cannery that also fills iced tea is counted as a cannery.
Energy drinks, sports drinks and functional drinks are not named in any Census industry definition or in the soft drink product lines. Census publishes no separate count or receipts figure for them; where they are made in soft drink plants, they are part of the soft drink manufacturing total. Nonalcoholic beer is the opposite case: Census names it explicitly, and puts it with breweries rather than with soft drinks.
Nonalcoholic Beverage Trends: Carbonated Drink Prices Up 37% Since 2019 #
Retail prices for carbonated drinks rose 37.2% between 2019 and 2025 (VantaInsights calculation from BLS CPI-U annual averages, 2019 and 2025), faster than food prices and faster than consumer prices overall. Noncarbonated juices and drinks rose less than carbonated drinks over the same years.
The production side, in direction only: soft drink manufacturers' receipts in 2024 were barely above their 2012 level in current dollars, while bottled water receipts grew faster than soft drinks over the same years, though they have fallen back from a 2022 peak (Census Economic Census and Annual Integrated Economic Survey, 2012-2024). The number of soft drink plants rose or held in every year between 2017 and 2023, and the number of bottled water plants has fallen since 2020 (Census CBP, 2017-2023). Coffee and tea manufacturing added plants in every one of those years.
Category trends such as functional drinks, lower sugar or alcohol-free alternatives sit below the grain of federal data: none of them has an industry or a product line of its own. Federal figures can tell you how large the categories that contain them are, and whether those categories are growing, but not how much of either is the trend.
Who Is Entering: 81 SBA Loans Since October 2023 #
The SBA approved 81 loans to soft drink, bottled water and ice manufacturers between October 2023 and June 2026 (SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA extracts, as of June 30, 2026), only a handful of them to businesses not yet open. Breweries and coffee and tea manufacturers each drew far more over the same period.
Small-business lending is a minor route into soft drink and water manufacturing compared with brewing or coffee roasting. That fits the plant profile above: a soft drink plant is a large operation, and most new beverage brands enter without building one.
Sources and Method #
Receipts are the Census Annual Integrated Economic Survey (AIES) time series, pulled from the Census API on October 19, 2026; 2024 is the latest year published. Census publishes AIES as the annual continuation of the Economic Census, and for these industries the two are identical in the census years 2012, 2017 and 2022. AIES figures through 2024 use the 2017 NAICS codes.
The plant count and employment in the figures above the article are Census County Business Patterns for 2023 (the most recent year published). CBP covers establishments with paid employees, so a beverage maker without employees is not in it.
Price changes are calculated from BLS Consumer Price Index annual averages for all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted, comparing 2019 with 2025. Loan figures are aggregates of the SBA's published 7(a) and 504 FOIA extracts dated June 30, 2026, aggregated by industry code for approval fiscal years 2024-2026.
Category placements are the Census 2017 NAICS industry definitions and the 2022 Economic Census product lines for soft drink manufacturing. Every industry whose figures this page uses carries the same code and title in the 2017 and 2022 editions of NAICS.
The full VantaInsights report covers the industry's market size from the Census Economic Census, with our projection; a five-year forecast with bull and bear cases; employment, establishment, payroll and wage trends (Census CBP, BLS); an industry outlook with growth drivers and risks; the competitive landscape; operating conditions: labor costs, wage pressure and macroeconomic factors; a SWOT analysis; state-by-state employment and establishment tables; official Census market concentration (CR4, and HHI where Census publishes it); and the largest public companies in the industry, named from SEC filings.