Boba tea, with its signature tapioca pearls consumed via straw, was once considered to be a cumbersome and impractical product for ready-to-drink formats. But now, sales of the Taiwanese drink in bottles and cans are bubbling up – and fast.
Within recent sales data from market research firm Circana, the performance of two RTD boba tea brands stands out. Del Monte Foods-owned Joyba, which launched in 2021, reported sales up 719.5% to over $33.5 million in the 52-week period ending June 18, making it the 10th largest brand in the shelf-stable tea category (excluding private label).
As well, New Jersey-based startup DD&B Solutions, maker of the Inotea brand of canned boba teas, reported sales up 253.5% to around $4.8 million in the same period, placing it above Bai and putting it on pace to surpass brands like Steaz and ITO EN in the very near future.
The sudden surge in two RTD boba tea brands comes amid a small wave of products entering the market looking to bring the popular on-premise drink to store shelves, including competitors like Bubluv, DaoHer Beverage and Bobba, as well as companies making at-home boba kits such as Boba Bam and TWRL.
Invented in Taiwan in the 1980s, boba tea – also called “Black Pearl” or bubble tea – is typically an indulgent beverage made by adding marble-sized tapioca “pearls” to sugary milk tea. The drink has been popular through cafes and restaurants, which are able to add the pearls fresh to the tea, and has continued to rise in popularity throughout the U.S. and global markets. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global bubble tea market was estimated at $2.29 billion in 2022 and was projected to grow from $2.46 billion this year to over $4 billion by 2030 at a 7.51% CAGR.
But despite some stray attempts to bring the drink to RTD formats in the past, boba tea had generally failed to take off in CPG due to formulation difficulties as the pearls tended to either become mushy and unenjoyable when left to sit in a can or, inversely, they became hard and unchewable; how the pearls went bad depended on the formulation.
Recent R&D developments, however, have finally made shelf-stable boba a possibility, helping lead to this new wave where Joyba and Inotea have emerged, for now at least, as leaders.
Joyba’s rapid rise has no doubt benefitted from Del Monte’s established distribution and sale operations. The brand is available in accounts such as Target, Costco, Circle K and Albertsons.
In May 2022, Del Monte Foods CMO Bibie Wu told BevNET via email that the nearly 140-year-old company initially developed shelf-stable popping boba for use in its snack lines before recognizing the ability to develop a ready-to-drink tea. Del Monte did extensive market research and consumer testing ahead of its launch, seeking to achieve an “optimal balance” between tea and fruit flavors. She noted that the brand was tailored towards younger consumers, citing data showing 71% of millennials like trying new and different types of foods, and that 50% of consumers overall were familiar with boba tea.
Designed by New York agency CBX, Joyba employs a custom 12 oz. plastic cup format, which comes with an embedded straw to mimic the on-premise boba tea experience. The drinks are available in four flavors: Strawberry Lemonade Green Tea, Mango Passion Fruit Green Tea, Blueberry Pomegranate Black Tea, and Raspberry Dragon Fruit Black Tea.
“Joyba’s key consumer targets are Gen Y and Gen Z consumers, and CBX knows that this new Joyba branding needed to feel aspirational, trendy, and experiential rather than functional,” CBX associate creative director Lauren Kossar said in a press release last year.
More recently, Joyba has expanded its marketing efforts. In June, the brand partnered with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation and actress Antonia Gentry for its “Real Tea, Real Talk” campaign to raise awareness around youth mental health support. The company also donated $25,000 to the foundation’s Pride Fund with CenterLink to support LGBTQ+ youth.
While Joyba seeks to mimic the on-premise boba experience with its custom packaging and added on straw, independent brand Inotea has employed a 16.6 oz. can with a large opening so the boba can more easily be consumed straight from the container or poured into a glass.
Representatives for the company did not respond to emailed questions by press time.
Inotea was founded in 2019 by CEO Kevin Kim, who had previously spent 18 years as director of operations for Washington Food & Supply of Maryland. Kim told BevNET it was regular trips to his local boba tea shop with his daughter that inspired him to start the company, eventually locating a manufacturer in Taiwan that could produce the drinks, which are then imported to the U.S.
Inotea now offers both classic teas in five flavors made with tapioca pearls and a new three-SKU line called Pobble made with popping bobas (which places it in more direct competition with Joyba).
While Joyba’s teas are decently sweet (25-28 grams of added sugar per 12 ounces), Inotea’s drinks are significantly more indulgent at around 41-48 grams of sugar and upwards of 294 calories per serving.
Though Inotea is small, its business has already expanded internationally; Kim said the brand is sold in Canada, Australia, Qatar, Mongolia and Belize and is now in the process of launching into Eastern Europe this fall including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
In the U.S., which is still the bulk of its business, Kim said Inotea initially launched into Asian grocery chains like H Mart, but quickly expanded its focus to include the conventional and natural grocery channels. Today, the brand is available in stores such as Albertsons/Safeway, Giant, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, HyVee and more, and Kim now wants to break into the convenience channel where the bulk of iced tea sales occur.
Kim suggested that part of the reason Inotea, though still small, has grown so quickly is because strong consumer demand for RTD boba tea has already existed thanks to the drink’s large on-premise popularity. Inotea’s biggest challenge, he said, is simply letting consumers know that what they’ve been craving already exists.
“From day one we have been aggressive on marketing the products,” Kim said. “Our number one problem has been that the consumers weren’t aware that such a product exists. Let’s say, from a store’s point of view, there are 100 bubble tea drinkers who come in every hour. But none of them were aware that canned bubble tea existed within the stores.”