In many industries, rivals face neck-and-neck competition with one another. But there’s a special edge to those vying for customer attention in the beverage space.
Much like food, beverage requires an elegant balancing act: make something new, but also familiar. Make it eye-catching, but not too much so. Make it healthy, but not so much that it’s unpleasant to drink.
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Starbucks is quite good at this game, drumming up a $94 billion market cap that some might say was built on the back of the mighty Pumpkin Spice Latte.Â
But of course, there’s a king among all the others, and it’s Coca-Cola. Originally founded in 1886 in Atlanta, Dr. John Pemberton served the world’s first Coca‑Cola at Jacobs’ Pharmacy, and a legend was born. Today, 1.9 billion people drink a Coke product each day all around the world.
A visit to the Coca-Cola Museum (located in Atlanta, naturally) will show you just how rich the history of the brand is — not to mention how many drinks it’s created. One of the museum’s most fun features is a room at the end where you can try Coca-Cola products from different countries. While not all of them have the zing of a freshly opened Coke, it’s fascinating to see what a powerful impact Coke and its products have had across the world.
But no huge business is immune from making mistakes. And a move Coke made in 2022 may have accidentally launched a rival.
Seth Goldman, Co-Founder of Honest Tea, before the product was rebranded as Just Ice Tea.
Image source: Ottesen/Washington Post via Getty Images
The remarkable story of Just Ice Tea
Those of us who grew up in the South and cannot bear a summer day without a cup of iced tea may have been fans of Honest Tea, as it was originally called when it was launched in 1998 by then-Yale student Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff, his professor.
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The idea was to create an organic tea that was not cloyingly sweet, and Goldman and Nalebuff succeeded. So much so, in fact, that the company caught the eye of Coca-Cola, which first bought 40% of Honest Tea in 2008 for $43 million, then purchased the company outright in 2011.
In 2022, however, Goldman was taken aback when Coke decided to discontinue Honest Tea. In an interview with New Hope, and despite what was surely a great disappointment, Goldman said at the time that he had no regrets.
“We built Honest Tea with intention, and so the intention is still there,” he also said. “As long as Coke was producing it, it was still manifesting itself out in the world. Once that stopped, we need to make sure that it continues to do so.”
Clearly Goldman’s intention was a powerful one. The company rebranded the product, becoming Just Ice Tea instead. And now, three years after Coke discontinued the product, it’s become the ninth best-selling tea in the U.S. grocery channel — actually beating Coke’s Peace Tea brand, per NIQ data.
“This shows we were right to believe in [this], and I think the folks at Coca-Cola just missed the opportunity and weren’t able to capitalize on it the right way,” Goldman said in an interview with Fooddive.
Just Ice Tea sales came in at $16 million in 2023, which was its first full year on the market. For 2025, the news is even better: the company is forecast to top $30 million this year. Also, new partnerships have been struck to put the brand in Target, CVS, and selected Walmarts, significantly broadening its reach while making those of us who love a lightly sweet tea very, very happy.
