The ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee and tea beverage categories experienced some hiccups in the past year. Results ranged from mixed to negative in all subcategories, according to data provided by Circana, a Chicago-based market research firm.
Let’s start with subcategories experiencing mixed results. RTD canned and bottled tea generated sales of $4.6 billion, a year over year (YoY) increase of 6.8%, but unit sales fell 5% to 1.71 billion for the 52 weeks ending July 16. Denver-based Pure Leaf, No. 1 in the subcategory, fell just short of $1 billion in sales for 12-month period, finishing with $989 million in sales, but saw unit sales decline 10% to 305 million.