pg tips herbal range tea

Unilever is hoping to shore up sales of its PG Tips brand with a further push into green tea and herbal infusions.

On 7 March, the brand will launch three flavours of green tea - Orange, Strawberry Cupcake and Lemon Pie - and four infusions: Apple & Cinnamon, Honey & Lemon Balm, Pear & Caramel and Cool Citrus. Each comes in a box of 25 pyramid bags (rsp: £1.39).

PG Tips relaunched the green and herbal range in January 2014 with 10 new flavours and smaller pack sizes after a previous set of products, launched in 2008, failed to gain traction in the mults.

The range was expanded last January with four further variants. Unilever said sales had grown 64% in the past year - but they still made up a small fraction of the brand, with the flagship variant accounting for more than 85.

PG Tips has shed sales as consumers have rapidly moved away from everyday tea towards premium brands such as Pukka and Teapigs, which can sell for 10 to 20 times the price of standard products. Tetley has taken a similar approach to PG Tips, introducing a new green tea range in 2014 and a vitamin boosted Super Green Tea range last January. It will expand that range next month with teas containing vitamin B1, B7 and selenium.

“By launching new and exciting flavours into our portfolio we aim to build on the growth we’ve seen in across our range of Fruit, Herbal and Green teas in 2014 and 2015, and attract even more new consumers to the category,” said PG Tips fruit, green and herbal tea brand manager Lola Danlos.