Eat the Change, the healthy snack brand founded by Seth Goldman has raised $14.5 million in new funding to support its expansion into the ready-to-drink tea category.
In June, Goldman announced plans to launch a new organic bottled tea line called Just Ice Tea under the Eat the Change platform after The Coca-Cola Company said it will discontinue Honest Tea, which Goldman co-founded and ran from 1998 to 2019. The new brand is intended to “fill the void” for a clean label, semi-sweet tea drink that Honest will leave behind when it is officially discontinued later this year.
According to the Washington Business Journal, which first reported the story Thursday morning, the latest financing round was led by Collaborative Fund and S2G Ventures, which combined contributed around $10 million. Collaborative Fund founder Craig Shapiro and S2G senior executive partner Walter Robb will join the brand’s board as observers. Additional investors include Honest Tea co-founder and Eat the Change board member Barry Nalebuff, tea suppliers and some Honest customers, Goldman told the publication.
Eat the Change is now seeking an additional $500,000 in financing to meet a $15 million goal, according to Goldman, which he expects to reach within the next 90 days. The brand, whose core product lines include carrot chews and mushroom jerky, previously raised $4.5 million in March.
Goldman told BevNET in June that Just Ice Tea will launch with six SKUs. The financing will go towards expanding Eat the Change’s manufacturing operations to support the new line in addition to distribution. The company also plans to hire at least six employees in the near future.
According to Business Journal, Just Ice Tea is now scheduled to begin a pilot run on Monday and the drinks will start rolling out to select Maryland stores in September, with two more national retail partners set to begin carrying the brand in October. About 1,000 stores are already committed.
On LinkedIn Thursday, Goldman hinted that the brand will have additional news coming on Monday but did not specify beyond that. Business Journal reported that Eat the Change intends to announce the first flavor in the Just Ice Tea line that day, with plans to stagger the product reveal, naming one additional flavor each week thereafter.
“With the snacks, we weren’t always getting our calls returned, just because it was more unknown,” Goldman told Business Journal. “With this, it’s known — and there’s an urgency on the customers’ part because the shelf space is opening up; just because Coke is pulling out doesn’t mean that the category, or the consumer, has disappeared.”