Attending Owambe or hosting guests in Nigeria is absolutely incomplete without having a soft drink, wine, beer and sometimes spirits on the table. However, Ice Tea products surfaced in the market many years ago and gave other drinks a big fight. Many brands of Ice Tea came and left, only for Chivita Ice Tea a product from the Chi family stood the test of time especially as recession sent many products packing in Nigeria some years ago; and has enjoyed a monopoly of the Ice Tea market until the last quarter of 2019.
Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc (“SBC”), the makers of PepsiCo brands of soft drinks in Nigeria have recently launched Lipton Ice Tea following the revived partnership between Soft drink giant PepsiCo and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) giant, Unilever.
According to the Marketing Manager at Seven-Up Bottling Company, Segun Ogunleye, the new Lipton Ice Tea is made from the freshest tea leaves soaked in hours of glorious sunshine and it comes in two juicy flavours of Peach and Lemon.
In 2003, PepsiCo and Unilever formed a global 50:50 joint venture – Pepsi Lipton International – to manufacture and market Lipton Ice Tea variants in 67 countries. However, it turned out that the product was ahead of its time as consumer insights revealed there was a gap between intent and action when it comes to consumption of healthy beverages.
It has now been reintroduced in the Nigerian Market with increasing health awareness particular, young urban adults looking at healthier options such as ice tea among beverage consumers. The joint venture company will use PepsiCo’s bottling facilities and distribution networks and Unilever’s famous tea brand and recipe.
WHY SEVEN UP IS INTRODUCING LIPTON ICE TEA
The decision to relaunch the Lipton Ice Tea comes at a time when rival Coca-Cola completed the full acquisition of Chi Ltd, three years after buying 40 per cent stake in the juice and snack company. Chi also has Chivita Ice Tea Lemon brand in the Ice Tea segment of the market.
CHI Ltd has continued to dominate ready to drink ice tea segment, the company leverages on its strong brand equity in juice, with consumers seeing its ice tea brand as an extension of the portfolio.
The two companies, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola now have to compete in the Ice Tea segment to battle for the market share.
Euromonitor International, the world’s leading independent provider of strategic market research, revealed that RTD tea consumers have shown more loyalty to local brands, which are often available at more competitive prices. Thus, Chi Ice Tea, which is packaged locally and widely distributed, gained a competitive edge over international rivals, especially during the recession.
The research added that Lipton Ice Tea remained the only international brand in the category in 2018. Although Unilever initially benefited from Lipton’s brand equity in hot tea, its RTD tea suffered from low visibility in the market.
Thus, the recent introduction now under the watch of Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc is set to change the market. However, industry watchers stated that the decision to relaunch the Lipton Ice Tea comes at a time when rival Coca-Cola completed the full acquisition of Chi Ltd, three years after buying 40 per cent stake in the juice and snack company.
It is worthy of note that globally Lipton is a British brand of tea, owned by Unilever. Lipton was also a supermarket chain in the United Kingdom before it was sold off to Argyll Foods, to allow the company to focus solely on tea. The company is named after its founder Thomas Lipton. The Lipton ready-to-drink beverages are sold by Pepsi Lipton International, a company jointly owned by Unilever and PepsiCo, the owners of the namesake product Pepsi.
THE COCA-COLA/PEPSI RIVALRY RE-INVENTED
To say that the age-long Coca-Cola and Pepsi rivalry has been reignited in the Ice Tea market is not an exaggeration. The intense rivalry between both carbonated soft drinks (CSD) giants, is the stuff of legends.
Pepsi fired the first salvo more than 40 years ago when it challenged its more established competitor in a taste contest that forced Coke to naively alter its winning formula and launch ‘New Coke’. Pepsi won this first round, as Coke got a backlash by loyal coke fans and were forced to re-evaluate their decision.
Ever since this near-disaster- at least for coke, both brands have been engaged in a head-to-head battle that has now become part of our global culture. Both brands have dominated the Nigerian market in value and volume, yet analysts constantly debate what really drives consumer preferences.
In 2017, Coca-Cola stormed the market with a new pricing strategy that it hoped would increase sales after it re-introduced its new small bottles but Pepsi was equal to the task with its counter-attack approach.
Beyond the regular soft drink war, both arch-enemies have taken the fight to the Ice Tea market which has a relatively smaller space compared to the real soft drink. Coca-Cola has acquired Chi and all its products which makes it the owner of Chi Ice tea while Seven-Up, the makers of Pepsi have taken over the Lipton Ice Tea franchise.
THE PRICE DIFFERENCE
Research has revealed that whoever controls the price of the soft drink market, without content reduction, would always have a stronger hold on consumers and the ability to induce them to switch brand loyalty.
But there is a big challenge for lovers of ice tea drinks in Nigeria presently. Two things are often considered by the Nigerian populace when it comes to soft drink purchase, the first is the quantity while the second is the price. However, the two ice tea products in the market as we speak look set for the battle with their current prices. 1 litre Chi Ice Tea is sold at N150 while Lipton Ice Tea is sold at N100.
CHIVITA OR LIPTON ICE TEA, MAKE A CHOICE
Looking at the outward appearance of both Chivita and Lipton Ice Tea, one would be forced to believe that they both look and taste alike but a straight look at each of their nutritional information will tell us the differences between both drinks and which should be more preferable most especially when the consumer’s health is involved.
Chivita Ice Tea on its nutritional table has water, natural tea extract, citric acid which is found in citric fruits like lemon, limes, oranges, grapes, etc., ascorbic acid (vitamin c), sugar (sucrose) and lemon juice concentrate.
Something worthy of mention is that Chivita Ice Tea contains 8mg of vitamin c. Although very small in quantity, Vitamin C is very important to the human body because it helps improve the immune system amongst several other things. Vitamin C can be found in mostly in fruits and a daily those of 80-100mg is recommended for an adult. It can also be obtained while consuming natural fruits.
For Lipton Ice Tea, the contents are almost the same save for a few additions. Lipton Ice Tea contains water, natural tea extract, citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin c), potassium sorbate, steviol glycosides, trisodium citrate and lemon flavour.
THE BIG DIFFERENCE
Having highlighted the major difference in both content, it is worthy of note that Lipton Ice Tea listed Potassium Sorbate which is a food preservative mostly used to preserve the product’s shelf life as one of its ingredients. Many of the products we consume have preservatives. However, research has shown that preservatives are not too good for our health because the consumption of preservatives over a prolonged period of time can have a negative effect on the human heart. In other words, too much consumption of food preservatives can lead to heart failure. The steviol glycoside is also an artificial sweetener while trisodium citrate is an additive.
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