Focus On Cold Brew: 5 September

Focus On: Cold Brew by Rob Brown

Publishing: 5 September

Advertising deadline: 21 August

Download the synopsis

Submissions deadline: 5 August

The story

Forget bone china and pinky fingers held aloft. After years of decline for the traditional cuppa, tea is being transformed. It can be fruity, fizzy or fortified with ingredients purported to promote better health. Crucially, it’s cold. That’s right: a growing number of players are tipping products such as iced tea, kombucha, macha and chai latte as a hot ticket. So how big is the market now and what’s its potential? And what lessons can be learned from the buoyant iced coffee market?

Key themes

Grocery market: This feature will explore in detail where the major opportunities lie in grocery for iced tea, chai latte, kombucha and other cold brew drinks brands. Which retailers are pioneering drinks like this and who is behind the curve?

Out of home market: To what extent is the grocery market being influenced by trends in the out of home market? Players have been putting growing weight behind cold tea products. How well have these lines been received by punters? Is there an appetite for such products in grocery?

Cold water infusions: Tea brands have been looking to offset dwindling sales of standard black tea with the development of cold water infusions. How are they performing? What factors (health consciousness, concerns over sustainability of standard soft drinks, etc) are driving demand?

Kombucha: Some are tipping fermented sparkling sweet tea product kombucha as the next big thing in soft drinks. Sainsbury’s, among others, seem to agree: the retailer currently stocks 17 lines while others such as Tesco haven’t jumped on this trend yet. How big can ‘booch’ get? What factors are driving growing demand for it?

Coffee: Any discussion of cold brew products wouldn’t be complete without referring to RTD and cold brew coffee products, which have been some of the best performing soft drinks in recent years. How is the market evolving?

Covid-19: If lockdown gave us anything, it was an opportunity to drink more tea. How did sales of standard black tea perform during lockdown, and what about iced tea products? With immunity a growing concern for consumers, are they turning to gut health promoting products such as kombucha? What other products in this category got a boost from lockdown?

Innovations: We identify four new products or product ranges that have ideally not appeared in The Grocer before including launch date, rsp and image of each