DRINKS SECTOR
Pepsi enters red-tea market
A presenter with the ready-to-drink Lipton Red Tea.
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Bt10m drive for 'sweet and sour' herbal beverage
Soft-drink manufacturer and distributor Pepsi-Cola (Thai) Trading is taking advantage of a downturn in the green-tea market to launch its new Lipton Red Tea. Lipton makes ready-to-drink black-tea beverages. Marketing director Charlie Jitcha-roongphorn said the company expected the new flavour to boost its market share from to 20 per cent by year's end, from the current 18 per cent. He said Lipton would spend Bt10 million to advertise the new tea drink across all media and giving away one million samples. It is a "sweet and sour" herbal tea made from rooibos, an Afrikaans word for "red bush", which is grown on the slopes of the Cedarberg Mountains in the Western Cape region of South Africa. It is Lipton's fourth flavour, after lemon, honey-lemon and peach. The new drink is available in both cans and plastic bottles costing Bt14 and Bt20, respectively. Lipton said the new drink would reinforce its brand name in the existing black-tea market rather than create a new red-tea segment. Charlie said the company planned to keep its name consistently at the forefront of the market by launching new seasonal flavours and marketing them. This strategy was adopted last year when it decided to promote the natural ingredients of its products and their packaging to attract teenage buyers. It hopes the black-tea market will continue to grow, although it does not expect to experience the massive growth seen in the green-tea market a few years ago. Charlie said ready-to-drink black-tea consumers regularly drank other black-tea products. Last year, the black-tea market grew 10 per cent, while green tea fell off significantly. This resulted in the overall tea market shrinking to Bt3 billion, from Bt5 billion the year before. Fashionable green-tea drinks represent about 80 per cent of the market. Charlie said it was difficult to increase black-tea sales to the level of green tea without introducing flavours that captured consumer attention like green tea had. He added that consumer confidence was not high in the current economy. Lipton is the only player in the black-tea market. Its sales grew 9 per cent last year, and it expects similar performance this year.
Nitida Asawanipont The Nation
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