off-trade

Noun

off-trade (uncountable)

1. (Ireland, UK) The sale of alcoholic drinks for consumption off the premises.
   • Distribution networks are particularly chaotic in the ‘on’-trade which has steadily lost ground to the ‘off’-trade. Estimates for the volumes of wines consumed in public vary wildly but now usually point down towards to 25%.1998, Pierre Spahni, Swiss Wine Market Report, Woodhead Publishing, page 56
   • The off-trade has been growing at the expense of the on-trade. Traditionally, wide choices of wine have not been available through public houses in the UK. With the growing interest in wine, this absence of good wine in on-trade establishments may have aided the growth in off-trade sales.2004, Kym Anderson, David Norman, The World's Wine Markets: Globalization at Work, Edward Elgar Publishing, page 133