Soft Drinks & Non-Alcoholic Beverages Data: Consumption, Intake, Prices and Product Records · Head-to-head
USDA ERS Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables vs UNESDA - Soft Drinks Europe Market Data
Which soft drinks & non-alcoholic beverages data: consumption, intake, prices and product records data fits your job: USDA ERS Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables, or UNESDA - Soft Drinks Europe Market Data. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
USDA ERS Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables
UNESDA - Soft Drinks Europe Market Data
Coverage, side by side
| USDA ERS Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables | UNESDA - Soft Drinks Europe Market Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | Three geographies - the United States, Mexico and world aggregates - with US imports from Mexico broken out by port since FY2011 | Twenty-nine markets: the EU-27 aggregate plus Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom |
| Temporal | Varies by table: caloric-sweetener deliveries by calendar year since 1966, prices since 1980, WTO raw-sugar quota allocations since FY1996 and refined since FY2006, monthly US estimates since FY2003, monthly Mexican estimates since FY2011, monthly US imports since FY2008 | 2015 through 2025 for the EU aggregate; 2016 through 2025 for most country files |
| Granularity | One observation per row at monthly, quarterly or annual frequency depending on the table, on fiscal (October-September), harvest or calendar year bases flagged per row | Annual, national level, one row per market-by-category-by-year, split again by calorie rating in a second block |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| USDA ERS Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables | UNESDA - Soft Drinks Europe Market Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Subject | Sugar, sugarbeets, sugarcane, corn sweeteners (dextrose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup) and honey: supply and use, prices, production, deliveries, stocks and tariff-rate quota imports | What Europeans drink: soft drinks, packaged water, dilutables, juice and nectars, in volume and per person, plus the no/low-calorie split of the soft drinks category |
| Geography | Three geographies - the United States, Mexico and world aggregates - with US imports from Mexico broken out by port since FY2011 | Twenty-nine markets: the EU-27 aggregate plus Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom |
| Temporal reach | Varies by table: caloric-sweetener deliveries by calendar year since 1966, prices since 1980, WTO raw-sugar quota allocations since FY1996 and refined since FY2006, monthly US estimates since FY2003, monthly Mexican estimates since FY2011, monthly US imports since FY2008 | 2015 through 2025 for the EU aggregate; 2016 through 2025 for most country files |
| Granularity | One observation per row at monthly, quarterly or annual frequency depending on the table, on fiscal (October-September), harvest or calendar year bases flagged per row | Annual, national level, one row per market-by-category-by-year, split again by calorie rating in a second block |
| Headline figure | 10,235 thousand short tons (dry basis) of sugar delivered into US food and beverage use in 1966, the opening year of Table 49, when corn sweetener deliveries sat at zero | 135,926.86 million litres of total EU soft drinks consumption in 2025 - 252.48 litres per capita |
| Unit of measure | 1,000 short tons dry basis for quantities, U.S. cents per pound for prices, with documented conversion factors (short ton = 2,000 lb; raw value = 1.07 x actual weight; HFCS-42 and -55 dry-weight factors 0.71 and 0.77) | Million litres for volume, litres per capita for intensity, population in millions carried alongside as the denominator |
| Classification frame | A commodity hierarchy: Table_number and Table_name down to Commodity_desc and Commodity_desc2 (for example Corn sweetener > High-fructose corn syrup), with Attribute_desc naming what is measured | A fixed beverage taxonomy defined in each file: Soft Drinks (carbonates, still drinks under 25% juice, iced/RTD tea and coffee, sports, energy, flavoured and enhanced water), Packaged Water excluding bulk/HOD, Dilutables (squash, syrups, fruit powders), Juice & Nectars (100% juice and 25-99% nectars) |
| Built-in analytics | None native - change and growth rates are yours to compute against the raw observations | Percentage change versus the prior year, five-year increments and CAGRs computed beside every series, plus the calorie-rating share block |
| Best for | Sweetener input-cost models, US-Mexico sugar trade and quota analysis, long-run consumption proxies for the American market | Category sizing and per-person benchmarking across Europe, sugar-reduction reporting, market-entry screens by country |
Or take both in one feed
They make a credible whole-chain pair: the sweetener account feeding the categories, and the consumption ledger showing where the output lands.
Three practical notes from the records. First, units: thousand short tons dry basis and cents per pound on one side, million litres and litres per capita on the other, with no native conversion - build your own and document it. Second, period basis: fiscal years ending September 30 against calendar years, so aggregate before joining or your 2024 will quietly mean two different twelvemonths. Third, geography: the footprints barely intersect - the United States, Mexico and world aggregates against twenty-nine European markets - so joins happen at the world-or-EU-aggregate level, or not at all. Or take both in one feed.
API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Fair questions
Is the USDA ERS Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook better than UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe Market Data?
Different instruments, so better depends on the job. For what Europeans actually drink - 29 markets, litres per capita by category, the no/low-calorie split - UNESDA is the only one of the two that measures it. Sample both and match each to the question.
What do the two datasets have in common?
More than their subjects suggest. Both reduce to geography-plus-period-plus-value rows, both carry a unit column on every observation, and both stay at market and commodity aggregates - neither knows anything about brands, SKUs, stores or company shares. Both also publish verified field definitions in Datadory's dictionary.
Can I use both datasets together in one analysis?
Yes - they hold opposite halves of one value chain. Mind the seams: thousand short tons and cents per pound against million litres and litres per capita, fiscal years ending September 30 against calendar years, and almost no geographic overlap between the two footprints. Join at the year level and document your conversions.
Which dataset is more detailed?
By breadth of geography, UNESDA: twenty-nine markets against three geographies, each carrying about thirty category-by-year series with growth arithmetic already computed.
How far back does each dataset go?
UNESDA runs 2015 through 2025 for the EU aggregate and 2016 through 2025 for most country files. Datadory delivers either daily, weekly, or hourly.