‘It’s a stale category in convenience’ was the common refrain from various iced tea brands at this week’s National Association of Convenience Stores convention.
Emerging iced tea brands came to the show armed with convenience-oriented flavors and packaging innovations as they attempt to expand and modernize the set in c-stores.
Occupying a booth in the New Exhibitor Area, The Ryl Company came to its first NACS, showing off flavors it expects will align with c-store consumers. Ryl was sampling its full line of teas, but was especially high on the opportunity for its newest flavors, Watermelon and Rocket Pop.
The company recently signed a three-year licensing deal with Jolly Ranchers (owned by The Hershey Company) to bring Blue Raspberry and Green Apple flavors to market in Q1, with more co-branded varieties to follow, reported Ryl president Ken Kurtz.
“When you innovate and create things like Rocket Pop, which is fun and exciting, it has a lot of appeal to not just tea consumers but anybody,” he said. “What we’re showing is that we can take people from outside of the ‘tea door’ who might not normally engage with iced tea.”
For now, the brand has focused its c-store distribution on the East Coast with 7-Eleven stores in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and QuickChek locations in New York and New Jersey. Ryl is also preparing for a launch into Chevron ExtraMile stores on the West Coast.
One of the challenges in convenience is that space is often limited to three or four SKUs, making it difficult to decide which flavors to bring into the set. While some retailers prefer nostalgic flavors like Lemon or Raspberry, many buyers are asking for innovation that speaks to next-gen consumers, brand representatives reported.
Zero-sugar tea brand Saint James was also sampling its newest flavor, Juicy Peach, a collaboration with Juicy Couture and influencer Ashtin Earle. But it was more excited to talk about how its packaging change earlier this year had opened up the c-store channel for the brand.
The “game-changer” switch allowed Saint James to enter the channel where the new resealable aluminum bottles fit into refrigerator slider systems better than Tetra Pak cartons.
Saint James is finalizing a deal with the Atlanta Retail Association to open up distribution with the organization’s 1,400 stores in Georgia. With about 37 states already in its network, the brand anticipates having “full national DSD coverage” by February or March 2026, said VP of Sales Tom Kurtz.
“I have about 60 contracts in the works right now, so my days and nights are quite busy,” he said as he rushed off to meet with another potential distributor.
For Yerba Madre, the convenience store strategy is about building out its offerings with retail partners. The brand is in the process of color-coding elements of the low-sugar can packaging to “signal better” with consumers the various options pertaining to unsweetened, low-calorie and “full expression of sugar,” CEO Ben Mand explained.
While the change will not affect all the flavors Yerba Madre currently produces, the brand is launching a low-calorie option of its best-selling Enlighten Mint, sweetened with stevia.
“C-stores do skew a bit more full-sugar, but we do feel like there’s a strong need for more low sugar,” Mand said. “Once you get around four SKUs, then it’s important to address the other consumer needs, typically with low-sugar. If we have six SKUs, I probably would have two low-sugar and then four normal full-sugar.”
Yerba Madre was sampling its newest flavors, Watermelody and Bravo Mango, which both have shown success in convenience.
The tea brand is also standardizing its caffeine levels, focusing on bringing its sparkling options to the same milligrams of caffeine per ounce as the rest of the portfolio, he said.
Consumers are learning to portion control caffeine intake, and the brand wants to make it clearer for them, Mand said. “It just makes it easier and consistent.”