Tea Sippers

With the new deal Pepsi has with Starbucks to manufacture, distribute and market the Tazo teas, Pepsi now owns almost 40% of the ready-to-drink teas. Coke only has 9% share with Nestea and Gold Peak according to our source. Tazo was acquired by Starbucks in 1999.

As we have mentioned in posts before, the ready-to-drink market is becoming bigger all the time. We love our iced sweet tea. Now they are saying this category expects to make $15 billion in sales by 2012. Last year, these types of teas had $7.4 billion in sales. We think buying teas are a healthier alternative to sodas. I just wish they would use something like stevia, agave nectar or real cane sugar for sweetening instead of the high fructose corn syrup found in so many of them. I get tired of reading bottle labels.

Looks like Pepsi has some congratulations coming for achieving such a big share of the ready-to-drink tea market and its newest agreement about Tazo ready-to-drink teas. Kraft will continue to handle the tea bags and latte concentrates.

Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=130445

Tags: tea benefits