US Sales of Brew and Ready-to-Drink Teas Increased in 2014The American Botanical Council's Tea Market Report Shows Sales of Herbal and Other Teas Continue to Climb
(AUSTIN, Texas, March 24, 2015) Tea (Camellia sinensis) is the world’s second
most-consumed beverage after water. According to a new report published in HerbalGram
— the nonprofit American Botanical Council’s (ABC) peer-reviewed, quarterly
journal — combined 2014 sales of brew and ready-to-drink (RTD) teas increased 4.1%
to a total of $4,304,656,364.1 Sales of loose, bagged, concentrated,
and herbal teas in the United States increased by 3.6% in 2014, reaching a
total of $1,814,632,064, while RTD tea sales in the US rose to $2,490,024,300,
an increase of approximately 4.4% over 2013 sales.1 Based on
available figures and beverage trends, growth in the RTD sector is expected to
continue for the next several years.
According to the report, growing demand for tea in the United States is being
driven by three primary factors: health and wellness trends, positive media
coverage, and an evolving retail landscape.
Consumers are seeking affordable, safe ways to enhance their personal wellness
and self-care regimens. For nine consecutive years through 2013, sales of
carbonated soda beverages have fallen as consumers have become more conscious
of healthier alternatives. Even fruit juices, because of their high natural
sugar content, have experienced a backlash recently. Consistent media coverage
is delivering a stream of positive news on the research validating health
benefits of tea consumption — particularly green tea — that is helping to
educate and motivate consumers to choose tea.
Further, thousands of independent and multi-unit tea retail outlets are
expanding nationwide, offering greater consumer access to finer-quality
specialty teas. In 2012, global specialty coffee leader Starbucks invested $620
million in its acquisition of Teavana — the largest North American retail tea
chain. Tea now accounts for 10% of Starbucks’ US retail sales.
This is the second time ABC has published its Tea Market Report. ABC’s first,
the 2013 tea market report, was published in the November 2014 issue of HerbalEGram,2 the organization’s
monthly online magazine, which provides original reporting on current news
pertaining to the botanical and natural products communities.
The HerbalGram tea market report is
based on sales data from the mainstream multi-outlet, natural, and
specialty/gourmet channels supplied by SPINS (and SPINS Multi-Outlet powered by
IRI [a Chicago-based market-research company]). The data do not include tea
sales from food-service settings including restaurants, cafés, delis, and
similar establishments. Additionally, sales from a number of other tea
distribution channels — including food service, mail order, online, network
marketing, convenience stores, Whole Foods Market, and thousands of independent
specialty tea shops — are not assessed by any single entity. Were those sales
data available and included, the report estimates total US tea sales for 2014
could be in excess of $15 billion.
HerbalGram’s 2014 Tea Market Report
includes 10 tables, which present isolated and combined sales data from the
mainstream multi-outlet, natural, and specialty/gourmet channels in 2014, as
well as sales figures from burgeoning niche categories such as organic,
non-GMO, and Fair Trade teas. Additional tables rank sales by packaging as well
as the top-selling primary herb ingredients in herbal beverage and medicinal
teas.
Among loose, bagged, and concentrated teas in 2014, black tea bags continued
their dominant trend. Loose iced teas and powder tea mixes followed, succeeded
by green and white tea bags, herbal beverage tea bags, and medicinal tea bags.
The top five herbs in 2014 in the US medicinal tea (bag) sector were,
respectively, chamomile (Matricaria recutita)
flower, senna (Senna
alexandrina) leaf, ginger (Zingiber officinale) root, dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) root and leaf, and echinacea (Echinacea spp.) root and leaf. In the 2014 US herbal beverage tea
(bag) category, top-selling primary herbs were chamomile, mints (Mentha spp.), ginger, valerian (Valeriana officinalis) root, and guayusa (Ilex guayusa) leaf. SPINS defines “medicinal teas” as all medicinal teas
with one or more medicinal ingredient, often marketed with a dietary supplement
structure-function claim, or strongly associated with a health focus. “Herbal
beverage” tea refers to single or blended beverage infusions formulated with
various combinations of fruits, spices, herbs, and C. sinensis not marketed with any health-related claim; they are
considered conventional foods in a regulatory sense.
“The tea market continues to expand, and, with our 2014 report, for the first
time we’ve compiled and reported these data in HerbalGram,” said ABC Founder and Executive Director Mark
Blumenthal. “The growth in the tea market parallels some of the strong,
sustained growth that we have documented for many years in the HerbalGram Herb Market Report. (The
herbal supplement market data to which Blumenthal refers may be found in ABC’s
annual Herb Market
Report, which tracks a category of
products other than tea.3)
The collaborative 2014 tea market report was written by veteran tea market
industry analyst and consultant Brian
Keating, founder of Seattle-based specialty tea and natural products
consultancy Sage
Group; Ash Lindstrom, editor of HerbalGram and primary author of ABC’s 2012 and 2013 annual herb
market reports; Mary Ellen Lynch, SPINS
director of consumer insights and strategic partnerships; and Blumenthal.
Keating
notes, “The HerbalGram annual tea
market report will quickly become the go-to resource for tea brands seeking
fresh marketplace data and specialty tea industry analysis. We’re pleased to
partner with HerbalGram and SPINS,
the leading provider of retail consumer insights and analytics for the Natural,
Organic and Specialty Products Industry.”
References
-
Keating B, Lindstrom A, Lynch ME, Blumenthal M. Sales of tea & herbal
tea increase 3.6% in United States in 2014. HerbalGram.
2015;105:59-67. Available at: http://cms.herbalgram.org/herbalgram/issue105/hg105-teamktrpt.html. Accessed February 26, 2015.
- Keating B, Lindstrom A, Lynch ME, Blumenthal M. Sales of tea & herbal
tea increase 5.9% in United States in 2013: 2014 tea sales on track to set a
record. HerbalEGram. Available at: http://cms.herbalgram.org/heg/volume11/11November/TeaMarketReport.html. Accessed November 20, 2014.
- Lindstrom A, Ooyen C, Lynch ME, Blumenthal M, Kawa K. Sales of herbal
dietary supplements increase by 7.9% in 2013, marking a decade of rising sales.
HerbalGram. 2014;103:52-56. Available at: http://cms.herbalgram.org/herbalgram/issue103/HG103-mkrpt.html?t=1408980803&ts=1408993085&signature=408ef98446a018144d01bb7a796915be. Accessed November 20, 2014.
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