TEA – We could talk about it much longer!

We have been very happy to study this market as students usually study big brands such as Nespresso, Apple or Microsoft, but in fact, the tea market is a very interesting one. It is growing every year and has more and more consumers. Even if tea has been commercialized for many many years, this market is nowadays trendy and glamorous. But not many brands are new, they have all started a long time ago, and are renewing their image to match today’s targets.

In some countries, tea is a religion, a tradition, or a ritual, but in France tea is trendy. People are consuming it for its healthy values. After some studies, we have discovered that French people are keen of strong flavoured teas, fruity teas and black teas. However, our English neighbours prefer classic English breakfast tea with milk.

It has been rewarding to analyse tea VS coffee markets, as they are the most consumed hot beverages in the world. And we have seen that it is two very different markets, although they are continuously competing each other.

Some new trends are emerging from tea brands and for sure, we could do this same study in a few years and we would have lots of evolutions to talk about.

Thank you for reading us!

To be continued…

Kusmi BB Tea

To keep attracting a target market that are women, 30-45, CPS ++, actively social with a busy lifestyle and concerned by their health and style that is important in the urban cities they live in, Kusmi creates new “teas” that match the trend.

They adapt their products to the trends. For example, they are well known for their “Detox” tea that especially attracts customers that are concerned by their health and their weight. Kusmi sells “well-being” tea, “sweet love” tea, “boost” tea and “cool” tea. So when you buy tea, do you get these attributes? Does drinking a “cool” tea make you “cool”? The naming seems to be working very well because those teas are among their “best-sellers”.

On the same trend, they recently unveiled the first BB tea. BB (Blemish Balm) creams are fast growing products in the beauty industry. Surfing on this hot trend, they created a BB (Beauty Beverage) tea that has that will give you a beautiful skin. Really? It’s very intelligent to surf on this trend, it’s a product that responds to almost all women’s desire which is to “have a beautiful skin”. Well isn’t that a magical product?

Kusmi Tea's little sister is born !

It is for this reason that, in 2010, as a result of the growing demand of consumers seeking for organic products, the group decided to launch the little sister of Kusmi Tea, Lov Organic. "The organic tea brand that embellishes the daily lives ".

The brand aims to establish itself as the world leader in premium organic teas within a few years.

To achieve this goal, the brand draws its inspiration in Scandinavia, where nature is omnipresent and where modernity and respect of the environment know perfectly coexist. Indeed, care of the environment is one of the defining characteristics of Scandinavian culture and resonates strongly with the values of the new brand, from this inspiration comes its name, Lov (meaning 'leaf' in Swedish).

Moreover, as Kusmi Tea, the visual brand identity is very strong. The brand has appropriated a minimalist design, joyful and colorful, strongly influenced by classic Nordic culture and a stylized bird, a symbol of a nature to protect.

The packaging system is stylish and eco-friendly, with a balanced contrast of bright and neutral colours which enhances the visual impact and the brand recognition.

The brand experience is also brought to life in store thanks to touches of nature such as green walls, or furnitures made of natural wood, on which the eco-friendly colourful packaging is presented with a maximum visual effect.

There is a striking contrast between Lov Organic’s modernity and the dull and conservative approach traditionally used for organic tea.

The premium organic tea brand proposes innovative recipes and all products have the "Label AB". Ii is also easy to recognize the influence of Kusmi Tea in the brand’s values: modernity, quality, well-being, tradition, audacity and avant-gardism.

Furthermore, the same distribution channels are used: Department stores and own stores, with the same desire to rapidly develop its own distribution network.

Both brands are therefore extremely similar. At the launch of the brand, the group even had difficulty in managing the two positionings. Indeed, the positioning of Lov Organic was too close to that of Kusmi Tea. But four years later, the two brands have managed to find their place and they are now complementary. Kusmi Tea's stores even dedicate a shelf for the products of his little sister.       

Finally, we can say that it is a total success for Orientis !

Sources:

http://www.lexpress.fr/styles/saveurs/kusmi-tea-devoile-lov-organic-petite-soeur-bio_906494.html

www.orientis.fr/

http://www.lesechos.fr/07/01/2014/LesEchos/21599-092-ECH_kusmi-fait-voir-le-the-autrement.htm

http://www.cba-design.com/fr/what-we-do/kusmi-tea-lov-organic

Big Retailers: A significant growth

Four main companies are composing the French large retailer:

- Unilever (1^st,  42% of the market share with Lipton and the Elephant)

- Twinings (2^nd 22% of the market share)

- Distributors' brands (3^rd) 

- Tetley 

We shouldn’t forget about Kusmi tea present in Monoprix, the most expensive and premium store.

Market share evolution

The tea market in large retailer is segmented in 5 types: Cold, perfume, standard, origin, and green tea. The origin tea is the bigger in value, and then the green tea. Lipton yellow tea is the most sold.

Tea is still progressing, People buy more and more tea, they like having various taste at home. The volume growth is carried by origin tea (+2%), only cold tea in going down. 

Value weight

Most of the sold teas are tea bags. There is a new innovation the pyramidal tea bag which allows the tea to have more space to infuse.