History
The Food That Built America Recap for Spilling the Tea
This week’s episode of The Food That Built America is titled Spilling the Tea and does a deep dive into the iced tea industry.
In 1904, people are flocking to the World’s Fair, where iced tea is being served by Richard B. Despite it doing well at the fair, it failed to catch on, except for Southerners, who loved the drink for entertaining.
Most Americans at the time also preferred coffee to tea.
Years later, Sir Thomas Lipton was selling his own line of teas and wanted to make it more popular to the masses. At the time, instant iced tea powder was in stores, but he wanted something more convenient.
Together with Hurbert Tibbets, they come up with the idea to make cans of Lipton iced tea to make it an alternative to soda. There is a lot of trial and error, but before long, they get the iced tea on the market….by adding sugar to make it taste better in the cans.
A six-pack cost about ten cents per can and despite being a better bargain, the flavor isn’t a hit.
In NY, three friends are working on selling bottled juices. Lenny Marsh, Hyman Golden and Arnie Greenberg were working in a deli, and their juices soon became a huge hit locally.
They soon hit a wall, and it isn’t until they are eating lunch together and drinking canned iced tea that they decide to make their own….in bottles.
It would become what we now know as Snapple. They use natural ingredients and experiment with brewing it to make the best tea possible, using leaves from all around the world, different flavors and finally put hot tea into the bottles and let it cool….coming up with a winner.
Getting people to buy it was a whole different story. The guys went around having people try it and soon come up with a deal with distributors by offering a third of the profits.
In 1987, Snapple debuts in NYC for a dollar a bottle, becoming a huge hit.
Lipton notices the competition and by 1990, Blaine Hess, Hurbert’s successor, decides he wants in on the action and work on a competitive product. They reformulate their iced tea and put it in glass bottles, using real tea leaves. They also improved their cans, making it even better and selling it for a lower price…..making what we know now as Lipton Brisk. They also partner with Pepsi, making them more popular than ever.
Not to be outdone, Snapple makes different flavored iced teas, including peach and raspberry, which really puts them on the map. However, they don’t have Pepsi, so Lipton is still winning.
In Brooklyn, there is another small company who wants in on the competition. John Ferolito and Don Vultaggio are working at a brewery company and have hit staggering sales on their products, which included a malt liquor.
Snapple decides to do ads on the radio and collaborate with none other than Howard Stern. He talks about it on his radio show and sales rise along with Howard’s stardom, making them both at the top of their game.
Don and John work on making their own iced tea, a drink that is taking the world by storm. There are many brands of iced tea, including Nestea, which is owned by Coca-Cola.
The guys decide to use bigger cans and give the drink a southwestern name, eventually landing on Arizona in honor of Don’s uncle, who moved to the state for his health. The capital Z is for aesthetics.
The drink debuts in NYC for 99 cents and becomes a huge hit. (As an aside, being a NY gal, there is nothing like a BEC on a roll with an Arizona. if you know, you know!)
Lipton wants to be back in the top spot in the iced tea game. They begin the iced tea wars and accuse Snapple of false advertising. It works for Lipton but causes Snapple to stumble and go under investigation. They are asked for their recipe, which would mean giving up their trade secrets.
Not wanting to give the secrets up, they switch the verbiage and change it to made from the best stuff on Earth. They then decide to make their employee Wendy Kaufmann, who loved to read the fan mail, their spokesperson. She would read the letters on commercials and became a national sensation. They are back on top!
Arizona is struggling due to issues with aluminum. They decide to keep their prices and even have it imprinted on the can. This makes puts them back in the game.
Snapple adds fun facts and is worth billions.
Lipton uses Claymation for their ads.
Arizona sells billions of cans a year.
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