Ice tea is a hot topic!

According to the NielsenIQ retail index from January 2023, Coca-Cola Magyarország’s Fuzetea is the best-selling product in most value and volume. Fuzetea products combine delicious tea from 100% sustainable farming – which is Rainforest Alliance certified – with tasty fruits, for an exciting flavour experience. In the winter and summer months Fuzetea launches special seasonal flavour combinations. The winter variant can be enjoyed both cold and hot. As for the summer flavours, they use the favourite fruits of the season to provide consumers with ice cold refreshment. This summer two seasonal products will be waiting for shoppers, sour cherry-elder ice tea and a brand new product, watermelon-mint ice tea.

Taking a look at retail channels, what we see is that the market share of small independent shops grew by 2.1 percentage points in comparison with the previous year, and made up for nearly 20% of total ice tea sales. Discounters and hyper- and supermarkets both have a 29.4% share in ice tea tales. Because of the inflation, production prices increased and this resulted in the strengthening of “B” brands and private labels; the market share of branded ice teas was 64.1%.

Márton Vecsei
senior brand manager
HELL ENERGY

Márton Vecsei, senior brand manager of HELL ENERGY Magyarország Kft.:

“Every 4th ice tea buyer purchases a XIXO product. Our goal is to preserve this market leader position in 2020 too, and maximise our presence on store shelves in every retail channel”.

In addition to the well-known and popular 11 XIXO ice tea flavours, this summer will see the return of a consumer favourite from 2022, the watermelon-raspberry XIXO ice tea.

Growing popularity of zero products

PET bottle ice teas are the most popular, and both the 0.5l and the 1.5l formats sell well. As regards flavours, lemon and peach continue to dominate, but a growing number of consumers are open to trying exciting new flavour combinations, plus zero products are also gaining ground.

Peter Schenk, marketing director of Szentkirályi Magyarország:

Special flavour combinations

Melinda Kun, brand manager of Rauch Hungária Kft.:

“As ice tea drinkers expect exciting new flavours, Rauch My Tea will roll out new innovations this year as well. Three new flavours will hit the shops, in popular aluminium can packaging”.

Rauch Juice bar ice tea targets health-conscious consumers, and they are made from nothing else but tea and 25% fruit juice.

Maspex Olympos Kft. distributes the Nestea brand, and the lemon and peach flavour realise the majority of sales, performing very well in both classic and zero version.

Loyal consumers

There is a downgrading to cheaper ice teas because of the inflation, and buying frequency is also dropping. On the contrary, it is good news that the penetration level isn’t diminishing, which means that consumers aren’t leaving the segment. Ice tea is a category with an especially loyal buyer base.

Adrienn Horváth, marketing and HR director of Márka Üdítőgyártó Kft.:

Managing director Attila Kaszás:

“My observation is that it isn’t only taste that matters to consumers anymore, as many of them wish to purchase ice teas with an added value. This is why we make Viwa Vitaminteas with organic tea and vitamins, and zero sugar content”.

It is very likely that a new Vitamintea will be launched already in 2023. //