The Visibility
Gap
What Brands Can't See in Portugal's On-Trade
Horeca Data InsightsExecutive Summary
The Opportunity
Portugal's 68% on-trade beer consumption — the highest in Europe — represents a structural market reality that most brands cannot see. Not because the data doesn't exist, but because the tools were built for retail-dominant markets. The result: four critical blind spots that compound from baseline through execution.
Four Critical Gaps
The Baseline Gap
Official estimates range from 25,000 to 74,524 establishments. DIG-IN verified: 84,222 active venues. Before any strategic analysis begins, market sizing is already 40% off.
The Execution Gap
Even with accurate baselines, distribution does not equal visibility. We assessed 636 brands across 2,569 Lisboa outlets revealing an 11× gap between leaders and challengers with equivalent distribution infrastructure.
The Forecasting Gap
Even with visibility, timing matters. Operating windows and geographic concentration create significant engagement differentials. Tourist corridors represent activation windows that annual planning cycles miss entirely.
The Discovery Gap
Even with timing, channel scope matters. Hotel F&B generates 205M+ food consideration moments annually with 5× higher engagement, yet remains invisible to restaurant-focused market sizing.
Key Statistics
provides the intelligence framework to close these gaps — starting with baseline reality that official statistics cannot capture.
Contents
The 68% Reality
On paper, the European beer market is receding. EU production has fallen from roughly 367 million hectolitres in 2019 to around 345 million in 2024. Consumption remains well below pre-COVID levels.
But the deeper issue lies in where consumption happens. Before the pandemic, roughly one-third of beer consumption in Europe happened in the on-trade — bars, restaurants, cafés, and pubs. Today, that share has dropped closer to 25%.
Portugal sits at the opposite end of this spectrum. With 68% of beer consumption happening in the on-trade, winning in Portugal is definitionally not about shelf space or supermarket promotions. It's about restaurants.
This isn't a quirk of beer culture. It reflects how Portuguese consumers live — a café-and-restaurant-centric way of life that extends across categories.
A Structural Pattern, Not a Beer Anomaly
The pattern extends beyond beer:
Coffee
Portugal's foodservice coffee channel captures approximately 45% of consumption, nearly double the European average of around 20%. The café is not just where Portuguese drink coffee — it's a social institution.
Wine
The on-trade channel captures roughly 30% of Portuguese wine consumption, above the EU average of approximately 25%. The on-trade represents a critical venue for premium positioning and brand discovery.
Household Spending
Portuguese households allocate 9.2% of total expenditure to food and beverages consumed outside the home, compared to approximately 7% for the EU average.
Restaurant Frequency
59% of Portuguese adults eat at a restaurant at least once per week, among the highest rates in Europe.
The implication is clear: any brand strategy built primarily on retail data is operating with structural blind spots in this market.
The 40% Baseline Problem
How many restaurants actually exist in Portugal? It depends who you ask.
When your baseline is 40% wrong, every subsequent calculation — market share, distribution coverage, competitive positioning — compounds the error.
What 2025 Actually Looked Like
The market isn't static. Neither is our view of it.
Official statistics track when companies legally dissolve — often 12+ months after doors close to customers.
DIG-IN tracks when restaurants actually stop operating. The difference: real-time market intelligence versus historical legal records.
Why Official Statistics Fail
Traditional market data sources were never designed for on-trade visibility. Four structural gaps explain why.
Annual Update Cycles
Aggregate totals updated annually from administrative records and surveys.
Real-time openings, closures, and seasonal shifts happening weekly across the market.
Decisions are based on a market snapshot that may be 12–18 months old.
Registration-Based Counting
Legal entities registered with tax authorities and business registries.
Multi-location groups, shared licences, and venues operating under a single VAT number.
The true number of operating venues is systematically undercounted.
Category Rigidity
Single NACE code classification per registered entity.
Hybrid venues, multi-format operations, and the blurring of traditional categories.
Market segmentation doesn't reflect how consumers actually experience venues.
No Operational Data
Whether a venue is registered and its declared category.
Trading status, footfall, brand visibility, menu composition, and competitive dynamics.
No way to distinguish a thriving venue from one about to close.
The result: brands operating in Portugal's on-trade make decisions based on data that is simultaneously incomplete, outdated, and structurally misaligned with how the market actually works.
The Tools Brands Use Today
CRM / ERP Systems
Existing customer interactions, order history, and account management.
Non-customers, competitive landscape, and untapped market opportunities.
Shows where you are, not where you could be.
Distributor Data
Your own product distribution, delivery routes, and order volumes.
Competitive presence, consumer-facing visibility, and market share context.
Coverage without visibility context.
Traditional Market Research
Sampled consumer preferences and estimated market shares at a point in time.
Real-time shifts, venue-level detail, and the gap between reported and actual behaviour.
Snapshots that may not reflect current reality.
Field Team Reports
Qualitative observations from visited venues within assigned territories.
Standardised data, unvisited venues, and objective competitive comparisons.
Expensive to scale and difficult to standardise.
What none of these tools answer:
- Where are my brands actually visible to consumers right now?
- How does my visibility compare to competitors, venue by venue?
- Where are the gaps between my distribution and my actual consumer-facing presence?
This is the visibility gap — and it's where DIG-IN operates.
Distribution vs Visibility
Product is physically available at the venue
Brand appears in menus, signage, or consumer-facing materials
A brand can achieve 80% distribution coverage while having only 20% visibility. The execution gap measures this difference — the distance between logistical presence and commercial presence.
Why This Matters:
- Consumers choose what they see, not what's in the stockroom
- Visibility drives preference formation and brand recall
- Menu presence correlates with order frequency
Being in the market does not equal being seen in the market
What the Sample Reveals
Analysis of 2,569 Lisbon restaurants surfaces the competitive reality of Portugal's on-trade channel. Each venue averages 5.5 beverage brands competing for visibility — from taps and fridges to menu placements and table displays.
Beverages account for 99.8% of observed brand placements. The remaining fraction — condiments, ice cream, snacks — reminds us that attention at the point of service is contested across categories, not just within them.
Competitive Intensity Distribution
| Segment | brands / Venue | establishments | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low competition | 1–3 brands | 855 | 38% |
| Medium competition | 4–7 brands | 824 | 37% |
| High competition | 8–12 brands | 451 | 20% |
| Intense competition | 13+ brands | 115 | 5% |
The long tail extends to 42 brands in premium tourist venues — every tap handle and menu line a hard-won placement.
Brand Rankings
Category Battlegrounds
Visibility concentration by category
Beer — Clear Market Structure
Super Bock leads with 48.4% of primary beer positions, followed by Sagres at 36.4%. The remaining 15% fragments across international brands (Estrella Damm 4.1%, Heineken 3.6%, Carlsberg 2.9%). Craft beer presence remains minimal in mainstream channels.
Water — Fragmented Opportunity
No dominant player has emerged. Pedras leads at 27.2%, followed by Luso (18.3%), Vitalis (9.4%), and Castello (7.0%). The category shows significant white space for brands willing to invest in visibility.
Soft Drinks — The 11× Gap
Coca-Cola's 66.6% visibility represents category dominance rarely seen in retail data. Pepsi's 6.0% — despite equivalent distribution capability — illustrates how execution gaps compound in hospitality channels.
Cider — Challenger Success Story
Somersby has built 14.2% visibility in a non-traditional category, more than double challenger Bandida do Pomar (6.2%). This demonstrates that visibility leadership can be established even in emerging categories.
Across every category, the pattern repeats: distribution infrastructure alone doesn't determine visibility. The brands that invest in on-trade presence — tap handles, fridge placement, menu positioning — build measurable competitive advantages that distribution data alone cannot capture.
450,000 Active Beverage Brand Moments Across Portugal
Brand touchpoints don't disappear in smaller venues — audiences do. When we map every menu listing, fridge placement, tap handle, and digital menu across 84,000+ restaurants and adjust for real-world visibility, the number is far larger than most brands assume.
Brands optimise for reach, but growth depends on where moments compound. A tasca with 30 daily covers and a branded fridge is still a live touchpoint — it's just one most brands aren't tracking.
The top 20% of restaurants — urban hubs, tourist zones, and chains — average 5 brands and 4 touchpoints each (menu, physical placement, digital menu, seasonal rotation). That's 20 brand moments per venue across 16,800 locations.
The remaining 67,400 venues still carry branded fridges, menus, and taps — just with smaller audiences. At 3 brands and 2 touchpoints per venue, filtered at a conservative 40% activation rate, these locations still generate significant, largely unmeasured exposure.
Brands don't have a shortage of brand moments to capture — they have a measurement problem. A DIG-IN maps the moments others miss.
The Rhythm of the On-Trade
Traditional Portuguese establishments — bakeries, snack bars, pastelarias — operate on rhythms optimized for local daily routines. They open early for breakfast, serve lunch, and close by evening.
Non-traditional formats — Japanese, Chinese, Korean restaurants, food courts — operate on extended hours that capture evening and late-night demand peaks.
The visibility implications are significant: a brand distributed into traditional formats has an 8-10 hour daily visibility window. The same investment in non-traditional formats delivers 14-16 hours of consumer exposure.
Your forecast treats all distribution points equally. The market does not.
A brand in a traditional format gets 8 hours of visibility. The same brand in a non-traditional format gets 16. Your budget doesn't distinguish between them.
Operating Window Analysis by Format
Traditional Portuguese Formats
| Format | Late-Night | Sunday | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bakeries/Pastelarias | 32.6% | 48.0% | 4.14 |
| Portuguese Snack Bars | 36.0% | 40.2% | 4.35 |
| Dessert Parlours | 20.0% | 25.7% | 4.28 |
| Casual Dining (PT) | 46.0% | 52.3% | 4.13 |
Traditional formats prioritize morning and lunch service. By 22:00, the majority have closed — precisely when tourist and evening entertainment demand peaks.
Non-Traditional/Systematized Formats
| Format | Late-Night | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese | 93.7% | 4.22 |
| Chinese | 94.0% | 3.89 |
| Korean | 100% | 4.45 |
| Food Courts | 100% | 3.26 |
| Fast Food Chains | 87.5% | 3.67 |
Non-traditional formats capture the full demand curve. A brand activation in these channels delivers nearly double the daily visibility hours.
Budget allocation that treats a bakery account identically to a Japanese restaurant account is misallocating resources by a factor of nearly 2×.
Tourist Corridors: The 4× Effect
Geographic engagement concentration follows tourism patterns, not population density. A single venue in the Algarve tourist corridor generates the consumer impression volume of four venues in regional Portugal — and in peak zones like Portimão's waterfront, that ratio climbs higher still.
This has direct implications for activation planning:
- Field coverage: Tourist corridors warrant disproportionate attention
- Budget allocation: ROI per activation varies 4× by geography
- Timing: Seasonal concentration amplifies the effect in summer months
The tourist corridor is not a secondary market. In summer months, it represents the highest-value activation opportunity in Portugal.
The Outdoor Visibility Premium
Outdoor seating correlates with dramatically higher consumer engagement. Venues with esplanadas generate 82% more reviews on average than indoor-only establishments. The effect amplifies in tourist zones:
| Location | Outdoor Reviews | Indoor Reviews | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carvoeiro | 415 | 2 | 248× |
| Albufeira | 347 | 2 | 148× |
| Portimão | 289 | 2 | 137× |
| Lagos | 234 | 3 | 78× |
82% more engagement equals 82% more brand impression opportunities per account. Yet standard trade marketing treats outdoor and indoor accounts identically.
A visibility-informed approach would: prioritize outdoor venues, weight geographic allocation toward high-outdoor zones, and time seasonal investment to capture peak outdoor periods.
The Channel Brands Don't Count
Traditional market sizing counts restaurants. It measures throughput, covers, average tickets. What it doesn't count: the 357,572 hotel beds that generated 82.1 million overnight stays in 2025.
A tourist staying in a hotel doesn't appear in restaurant databases until they walk through the door. But their F&B occasions exist from the moment they check in. More critically, the hotel is where brand preferences form. The welcome drink, the lobby bar, the breakfast buffet — these are the first touchpoints where tourists encounter and select brands.
Missing hotel F&B doesn't cost you one occasion. It costs you the anchor that shapes every subsequent choice.
82.1 Million Nights: Who's Staying
Understanding who fills the beds changes how brands should think about reach
Top Source Markets (2025)
Iberian Opportunity
9.1% of overnight stays. Brand visibility in Portuguese hotels reaches Spanish consumers at scale.
US & Canada Growth
North American markets = fastest growing (+4.9% US, +5.8% Canada). High-value segment discovering Portuguese hospitality.
The 30.6% Local Brands Can't Ignore
30.6% domestic nights (25.1M). Year-round, repeat-visit potential that international tourism can't match.
For international FMCG brands, hotel visibility reaches British, German, American, Spanish, and French consumers where they're most receptive — on holiday, forming preferences they'll carry home. For Portuguese brands, this is a home-field advantage.
Where Reach Concentrates
30.8% of bed capacity in 5% of land area — but reach composition matters
| Region | Beds | Share | Tourism |
|---|---|---|---|
| Algarve | 110,122 | 30.8% | 25.4% |
| Grande Lisboa | 75,063 | 21.0% | 23.9% |
| Norte | 77,964 | 21.8% | 18.0% |
| Centro | 36,215 | 10.1% | — |
| Madeira | 30,300 | 8.5% | — |
| Alentejo | 26,544 | 7.4% | 4.3% |
Algarve: 27.1% of stays | Lisboa: 23.4% | North: 17.8%
Bed capacity aligns with actual tourism flow. The reach is real.
The international beach draw. Primary reach for international brands.
Portuguese exploring Portugal. Strong base for local & regional brands.
International brands → Algarve focus. Portuguese brands → North & Centro foundation. Different audiences, different opportunities.
30.8% of Portugal's hotel capacity concentrates in 5% of its land area. Combined with Lisboa and Porto, three corridors represent 73.6% of all hotel-driven F&B demand.
The Preference Formation Window
Hotel F&B
Casual Dining
Brands visible in both contexts compound advantage. Missing either half breaks the loop.
Day 1: Arrival
- Welcome drink → First exposure
- Pre-dinner drinks → Reinforcement
- Hotel restaurant → Normalized
Days 2-7: Exploration
- "[familiar brand]" → Activated
- "[Brand] please" → Confirmed
- Comfort choice → Loyalty
Missing hotel F&B doesn't cost you one occasion. It costs you the preference-setting for the entire tourist journey — AND the 4.2× to 12.6× engagement multiplier that hotel contexts deliver.
Infrastructure Forward Signal
Additional beds in approved development pipeline
Notable Approved Projects
| Project | Location | Beds | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Riviera Resort Cascais | Cascais | 1,242 | Approved |
| Royal Évora Resort | Évora | 730 | Approved |
| Meia Praia Bay | Lagos | 606 | Approved |
| Praia Verde Resort | Castro Marim | 482 | Approved |
| Various smaller | Multiple | 2,246 | Approved |
Tourism development projects file public documentation 18-24 months before opening. This creates a forward signal invisible to traditional market analysis.
Brands tracking development pipeline can:
- Establish distribution relationships before competitors
- Negotiate favorable terms with new properties
- Align activation timing with opening periods
- Build presence in growth corridors before they mature
The beds in current pipeline represent approximately 9,285 daily F&B occasions at maturity — equivalent to opening 50+ new restaurant accounts, concentrated in high-value tourist zones.
What the On-Trade Actually Looks Like
We assessed 143 postal zones across Lisboa and Porto
Rating Tier Distribution
Format Performance
| Format | Consumer Validated | Avg Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Snack Bars | 100% | 4.51 |
| Bars | 77.8% | 4.00 |
| Casual Dining | 77.4% | 4.16 |
| Bakeries & Pastry | 74.1% | 4.17 |
| Food Courts | 20% | 3.18 |
Consumer validated = establishments where consumers actively rate and review. These are the venues where choice happens. 77% of tracked establishments in Lisboa and Porto carry these signals — a quality layer that exists but remains disconnected from brand targeting and allocation decisions.
The Gap at a Glance
Three Dimensions. One Structural Problem.
The Execution Gap
The Forecasting Gap
The Discovery Gap
Retail data shows what people buy.
Restaurant intelligence shows what people choose.
In Portugal's hospitality-dominant market, that's the difference between lagging and leading indicators.
What This Means for Brands
Four strategic decisions being made with incomplete data
More accounts = more visibility
Distribution does not equal visibility. An 11× gap exists between brands with equivalent distribution.
Trade marketing budget allocated to accounts that don't deliver consumer impressions.
Official statistics reflect market reality
40% variance in baseline counts. 16,484 closures invisible to registry data.
Forecasts built on a market that doesn't exist as measured.
Population density drives coverage priority
Tourist corridors generate 4× engagement. 30.8% of hotel capacity in 5% of land area.
Field resources spread evenly across uneven opportunity.
Summer volume scales uniformly
205M+ hotel F&B occasions annually. Operating windows vary 27% to 100% by format.
Activation timing misaligned with actual consumption windows.
These aren't edge cases. They're the core decisions brand managers make quarterly — distribution priorities, volume forecasts, territory allocation, campaign timing.
Each one is currently made with tools designed for retail-dominant markets, applied to a hospitality-dominant reality.
From Dashboard to Infrastructure
Restaurant intelligence isn't optional. It's foundational.
For sales pipeline management
No one questions whether to have one.
For supply chain operations
No one questions whether to have one.
For on-trade visibility
Still treated as optional by most.
"How long can any brand afford to operate
without information that matters?"
In a market where 68% of consumption happens in hospitality, restaurant intelligence isn't a dashboard or a one-off study.
It's infrastructure — as fundamental to FMCG strategy as CRM is to sales or ERP is to supply chains.
The visibility gap is real. The data to close it exists.
Methodology & Contact
Data Sources
| Source | Coverage |
|---|---|
| DIG-IN Proprietary Database | 84,222 restaurants |
| Turismo de Portugal | 5,543 tourism establishments |
| The Brewers of Europe | EU-27 beer statistics |
| European Coffee Federation | Coffee channel data |
| Eurostat | Household spending |
Analysis Methodology
- Brand visibility: Computer vision + menu text extraction
- Operating patterns: 130 format × cuisine combinations
- Geographic concentration: Engagement by postal zone
- Hotel economics: Bed capacity × occupancy × frequency
The visibility gap is real. The data to close it exists.
For brands operating in hospitality-dominant markets, restaurant intelligence isn't a dashboard or a one-off study. It's infrastructure — as fundamental to FMCG strategy as CRM is to sales or ERP is to supply chains.
Horeca Data Insights