Honest Tea Launching Line of Organic Cold Brew Coffees

Breaking Into New Markets

09-13-2019

Honest – the makers of the nation’s top-selling organic bottled tea – is entering the red-hot cold brew coffee market, the company announced this week at the Natural Products Expo East tradeshow in Baltimore.

Honest Cold Brew Coffee will be available in three flavors – Unsweet Black, Just a Tad Sweet™ Cubano and Just a Tad Sweet™ Mocha – all in recyclable 11-oz. glass bottles. The offerings debuted recently on the West Coast and will roll out nationwide in early 2020.

“Because we chose to develop a lower-sugar, black cold brew variety without dairy, our proposition helps to deliver a smooth taste, which is important to our target millennial consumer.”
 

The cold brews feature USDA Organic and Fair Trade Certified™ ingredients. The Just a Tad Sweet Cold Brew Coffee varieties contain half the sugar than the leading sweetened ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee.

The launch gives Honest a differentiated entrée into the U.S. cold brew coffee segment, which is up 600% since 2015. Honest GM Clare Verdery said RTD coffee is a natural extension for the brand, given its adjacency to bottled organic teas. Honest currently sells RTD coffee in the UK, Spain and Norway.

“Because we chose to develop a lower-sugar, black cold brew variety without dairy, our proposition helps to deliver a smooth taste, which is important to our target millennial consumer,” Verdery said. “Our vision for Honest is to ‘own the fridge’ by introducing organic, lower-sugar beverage solutions for adult, youth and all-family drinking moments throughout the day.”

Honest Cold Brew supports Co-founder and TeaEO Emeritus Seth Goldman’s mission to democratize organics and make a positive impact on communities with every Honest beverage sold.

“More and more people are voting with their dollars, so it has become increasingly important to weave our mission into our innovation pipeline,” Verdery added. “As we expand into new categories, it’s even more important that we abide by our brand guardrails of being organic, lower calorie than the competition, and Fair Trade certified wherever possible.”

Honest recently unveiled the “small decision. BIG impact” campaign to showcases the brand’s purpose-driven DNA and expanding organic portfolio – which also includes Honest Kids juice drinks, lemonades and more.

The creative positions Honest as an organic “masterbrand” with something for everyone and shows how the seemingly small action of reaching for an Honest beverage can make a big impact – not only in the wellbeing of those who enjoy these delicious lower- or no-sugar organic beverages, but also in the lives and communities of the supplier farmers who help produce them.

Honest’s partnership with Coca‑Cola has expanded distribution of its organic products to more than 150,000 retail and foodservice locations across the United States, and more than 40 European countries.