If you have young adults in your life, hopefully they have introduced you to bubble tea, also known as boba tea. This combination of tea, milk, and gelatin-like tapioca pearls, invented decades ago in Taiwan, can by now be found in strip mall cafes all over the US. Almost always there are high school and college students inside slurping boba beads through oversized straws. Franchised versions of the concept have of course followed.
Having visited a few of these bubble tea cafes with my kids, I was primed to notice several ready-to-drink and make-at-home versions seeking to capitalize on the boba trend — and to take drink occasions away from iced and bottled coffee. Here are a couple:
G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, PepsiCo’s largest fully independent US franchise bottler, is preparing to distribute Hard Mtn Dew on the same “blue trucks” that distribute Pepsi-Cola and other non-alcoholic brands. In an interview at BD’s Future Smarts conference in New York on Dec. 5, G&J CEO Tim Trant said the Cincinnati-based company has applied for beer distribution licenses ...
Major US non-carbonated beverage categories generated higher pricing at retail during the first nine months of 2022, which lead to dollar gains in all categories tracked by BD. While volume fell for all categories except plain bottled water, the declines did not show accelerated erosion compared to the six-month trend. Sports drinks and plain bottled...
PepsiCo will unveil a new lemon lime soda called Starry at the annual NACS show for convenience store operators that starts today, according to company sources. While details are scarce, BD has learned that the drink is a new brand within the lemon lime soda category dominated by Coca-Cola’s Sprite. Starry will include regular and zero sugar versions, according to the sources. It will be available nationally starting in...
Q&A: Founder Arsen Avakian Writes Second Act After Argo Tea
September 22, 2022
Argo Tea Co-founder Arsen Avakian was struck by how often consumers in store aisles pulled out a cell phone while browsing a drink cooler. When he asked why, he learned they were researching brands to understand everything from ingredients to provenance. With a background in technology, Avakian had a...
Pricing growth remained elevated through the first half of this year at US retail for non-carbonated beverage categories tracked by BD. As shown in the table, that led to dollar sales growth even as volume declined for all tracked categories except plain bottled water. Pricing growth for the first half of the year for all categories except sports drinks...
The liquor store sure has changed. I popped into one last week to grab some Finnish Long Drink for our dog sitter. I left having seen the very embodiment of a trend.
A massive display of Svedka vodka sodas and teas greeted me at the door. Other floor displays throughout the store pitched bright-colored cans of premixed cocktails, like a gin and tonic from Bombay Sapphire. Newer canned spirits brands such as High Noon and Cutwater stacked the cases high and sold them – at a premium.
An entire section of shelves was permanently labeled “Ready-to-Drink.” An endcap display, big enough to incorporate a full-sized bicycle, marketed a product from craft beer trailblazer Dogfish Head (eventually acquired by Boston Beer). The display wasn’t for beer, however. It was for canned cocktails by Dogfish’s distilling unit. Even Dos Equis offered a blanco tequila ready-to-drink margarita.
I asked an alcohol distributor stocking a display about the transformation (spurred in part by consumers’ boredom with beer)...