Things are about to get ryl.
As a fast-rising company in a fast-growing category, Ryl Tea is at an early inflection point in its short lifespan. Speaking about its run thus far, CEO and founder Blodin Ukella emphasized the brand’s attention to efficiency, cash flow and judicious P&L. But a shift from wholesale towards DSD means a new approach led by new leaders and investment, part of Ukella’s plan for Ryl Tea to break away from the chasing pack.
“In order to elevate the degree of what winning looks like in retail, you need that wholesaler network,” he said, sitting alongside president Ken Kurtz on a call from the company’s offices in New Jersey last week. “You need the people that are touching the brand and building the brand alongside our internal team, and that’s really what’s driving the major focus on the shift — we need to increase availability and awareness, but we need to provide best-in-class service to our partners.”
The startup has quickly found its footing after it was launched by Ukella, the former chief strategy officer at plant-based nutrition brand OWYN, in January 2023 with around $6.7 million in seed capital. Riding the line between better-for-you and accessible convenience, Ryl Tea’s eight flavors — Raspberry, Peach, Green Tea, Lemon, Sweet Tea and Half & Half from its core line, plus the two-SKU Immune Support subline — eschew sugar in favor of a combination of monk fruit and stevia extract, while boasting 200mg of polyphenols per 16 oz. can. Over the last 12 months, the drinks, retailing in the range of $2.29-2.69, were picked up by stores like Harris-Teeter, ShopRite, Kroger and Wegmans.
The brand’s move into DSD will involve “identifying the best-in-class suitors within each respective vertical and channel trade,” Ukella said. Publix (Southeast) and Hannford (Northeast) will each be taking on three to four SKUs in the coming weeks. Those two regions represent Ryl’s “core markets,” Kurtz noted, and will be the brand’s short-term focus in contrast to the South and West Coast, which is “pretty built out” already. Sales teams will ideally act as “full integrated infrastructures” to support DSD networks in each region.
Moving to a bigger stage also sparked a slight change in the package itself, which now features a callout as “Iced Tea With Benefits” on the can.
Channel strategy is directly related to investments in the company’s infrastructure, said Ukella. That includes growth capital in the form of another pro-rata funding round — just under $10 million — but also through the recent addition of three regional sales leaders, part of a hiring push that will see the company scale up “5x” over the next 90 to 120 days.
Kurtz, who was Ukella’s boss when the two worked together at Bai in the mid 2010s, is driving that development
“I think that’s where DSD gives us that extra value to extend beyond the playbook or beyond the planogram, to go off-shelf,” Kurtz said. “I take a lot of pride in building best-in-class organizations that know how to win at retail.”
Arguably the brand’s most powerful new addition, however, comes with little beverage experience. Country star Morgan Wallen initially joined Ryl Tea as an investor last year and quickly collaborated on a Sweet Tea flavor (featuring “Crafted by: Morgan Wallen” splashed across the front label), but he now represents the brand’s “cheat code” for building awareness, Ukella said. The “Last Night” singer teamed with Barstool Sports blogger Caleb Pressly for a Ryl Tea digital short in February that Ukella said created 15 million impressions in 48 hours total, with plenty more in the pipeline.
“Morgan’s level of involvement is at a much, much higher pace at this point,” said Ukella. “We have content that is consistently being curated with him to basically showcase to his fans that he’s all-in.”
“We are working hard on making sure availability is increased,” Wallen said in a statement. “We need to make sure folks can easily access the product when they want to, and can buy it in their local store. As an investor and a partner, I’m involved in some creative and also the ‘behind the scenes’ side of the business – meeting with key buyers, letting retailers know that I’m here to support the brand as it builds up and more.”
Ryl Tea isn’t the only upstart brand fighting for eyeballs and shelf space in the iced tea category. Flush with new money themselves, Liquid Death, a Live Nation partner, has expanded its roster of flavors, while organic brand Just Ice Tea recently made the jump into cans. New executive management at Guayaki and prebiotic iced tea Halfday are likely to have an impact. Elsewhere, Saint James Tea — where Ken Kurtz’s brother, Tom, recently joined as head of sales and distribution — has found success integrating its organic, TetraPak-packaged teas into trendy settings like Soho House and Coachella Music Festival.
But those types of venues don’t make sense for Ryl without scaling availability, Ukella argued. Instead, he’s excited about Wallen’s bigger role and the potential for strategic NIL partnerships with college athletes, like University of Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton.
On the distribution side, he points to a national rollout in Vitamin Shoppe (four SKUs), a positive early test with Target and plans to expand to more Wegmans stores. With Kroger, expect to see Ryl’s debut in 4-packs of 12 oz. cans when the store adds five more SKUs later this summer, the founder said. By midsummer, Ryl is expected to be in as many as 15,000 total doors, compared to around 5,000 currently.
“Look, it’s easy to burn cash,” he said. “We don’t want to burn cash, we want to invest cash and if you invest it, it’s going to build value, it’s going to build our presence. That’s where our focus is.”