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Remember when tea was just supposed to taste good? Now, many consumers are starting to consider tea, especially green tea, a health drink — something with antioxidants that can make you feel better and possibly prevent cancer or a heart attack. Though research on specific health benefits still is preliminary, beverage companies are boosting tea sales by playing to that perception. Ready-to-drink tea — that's tea that comes in a bottle or can and doesn't need to be brewed — grew 10 percent in the first half of the year, according to Beverage Digest. For the beverage industry, this is particularly significant because sales of sugary soft drinks are down and companies are searching for new growth areas. "Green tea has gone from niche to mainstream," said Stacy Reichert, a vice president at Pepsi, who heads the company's Lipton unit. Pepsi produces Lipton ready-to-drink tea through a partnership with Unilever. Pepsi repositioned its Lipton teas this year as healthful products, a strategy that seems to be working. Sales volume for Lipton bottled teas grew 35 percent in the first half of the year. The timing was just right, Reichert said. "By the time we were ready to launch, antioxidants already meant something to people," she said. Antioxidants are substances such as Vitamin C that combat so-called free radicals in the body, which can contribute to cancer, diseases associated with aging and other medical problems. Antioxidants naturally occur in many foods, such as vegetables and fruits. The Lipton bottle is now decorated with a picture of a green leaf, an image meant to convey "all this healthfulness comes naturally from the leaf," Reichert said. It also bears a seal noting the drink's antioxidant content. An advertising campaign focuses on the health benefits of tea, including an ad that shows two fit guys, one drinking a bottle of Lipton tea and one holding up a huge stalk of broccoli. The copy says: "If you're going to have your antioxidants, at least enjoy them." After green, maybe white Lipton's success is hardly isolated. Ferolito, Vultaggio & Sons, the No. 2 ready-to-drink tea player behind Pepsi in terms of sales, says its biggest seller is Arizona green tea, which comes in pretty, Asian-inspired green bottles. It also has a new Arizona blueberry white tea in a bottle touting its antioxidants in blue letters. The company's tea sales increased 48 percent in the first half of the year. Start-ups are jumping into the market, too. Healthy Beverage Co., maker of Steaz Green Tea Soda, hopes to hook people who like the fizz of a soft drink but want the health benefits of green tea. It expects to sell $3 million worth of the organic soda this year, up from $1 million in 2003, the first year it was on the market. Eric Schnell, a co-founder of the Newton, Pa., company, said he and his partner came up with the idea after noticing "people were leaving soda to drink tea and juices." Other niche products and players include Honest Tea, Sweet Tea Leaf, Revolution Tea and Ito En, a Japanese company with a fast-growing U.S. division that sells bottles of Teas' Tea and cans of Sencha Shot. More tea offerings are no doubt on the way. "The tea category is about to get an infusion of focus and new products, many with health and wellness ingredients or attributes," said John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. At Pepsi headquarters in Purchase, N.Y, Reichert is looking for the next big thing. Her office is stocked with red teas, green teas, white teas and all-natural teas. She is planning an outing to a hip teahouse in New York City, owned by Ito En. "I think white has the potential to be the new green," she said, explaining that white tea may have more antioxidants than green tea. Joe Simrany, director of the Tea Association of the USA, said Americans long have had a vague association between tea and health, such as a memory of mom giving them hot tea for a cold. However, only in the past 15 years has real research been done on the health benefits of tea. Much of the results have landed in the media, and about five years ago beverage companies got serious about marketing their teas as having antioxidants, he said. Not everyone is jumping onto the health bandwagon. Atlanta-based Coca-Cola has continued to market its Nestea line, which it sells through a partnership with Nestlé, as a refreshing, tasty drink. Nestea's volume declined in the first half of the year, even as the tea category grew as a whole. "We don't make health claims on ready-to-drink teas because we don't think the science supports a significant health benefit for most ready-to-drink teas," Coke spokesman Ray Crockett said. But don't count Coke out of the healthy tea game. "There are health benefits associated with tea, and we are looking at that in the future," Crockett said. Coke has been working on a product called Enviga, which is reportedly tea infused with nutrients that burn calories. Measuring the flavonoids Sorting out the research is not easy. Jeffrey Blumberg, the senior scientist and director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said there is strong data showing green tea is good for the heart, moderately developed research linking green tea to cancer prevention, and preliminary findings that green tea will help with dental health, weight loss and osteoporosis. The FDA has not yet given any tea firm the OK to make specific health claims about green tea. More research on humans is needed, Blumberg said. Evidence for bottled teas is weaker than for freshly brewed teas. Green teas are healthful because they have certain flavonoids, natural chemicals found in plants, he said. Flavonoids are a kind of antioxidants. The problem, Blumberg said, is "there are little or no flavonoids in bottled tea." Simrany acknowledged there may be fewer antioxidants in bottled tea than in freshly brewed tea. "Everything is relative," he said. "But with the taste and convenience and availability and health benefits, you can't beat ready-to-drink tea. It is better than water." Reichert at Pepsi said, "While it's true that a hot cup of tea has a higher concentration of antioxidants than bottled teas, our teas still deliver substantial levels of antioxidants. We'd never include the seal on our packaging if that were not the case." Food marketing expert John Stanton, a professor at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, said he is wary of health marketing generally, because scientists often change their minds about what is good for people. "Perception really is reality," Stanton said. "The problem is when that perception and that reality is based on something that doesn't have a strong foundation." He said the low-carbohydrate diet wasn't based on good science. The fad waned, and Atkins Nutritionals landed in bankruptcy this year. "If I was in the business, I would make the best-possible tasting tea," he said, "and then if I could make the claim that green tea is good for you, I would add that." Source: www.ajc.com Oct 10, 05 |
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