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Creative tea trends good news for NZ dairy

The below article has been sourced directly from Fonterra. It is dated 21 June 2018 and appeared on the media section of their website.

It’s tea, but not as you know it. Right now people are adding more than just milk and sugar to their cuppa’s and Fonterra is set to meet the demand for adventurous tea and coffee drinks around the world.

Beverages made with yoghurt, topped with cream cheese and mixed with cream are growing in popularity, leading Fonterra to establish a new channel within its Global Foodservice business, Beverage House.

Almost 600 million cups of tea and coffee are consumed out-of-home daily in the Asia Pacific region, a 22% increase on five years ago.

General Manager Marketing, Global Foodservice, Susan Cassidy says Beverage House will provide premium Anchor Food Professionals products to the growing number of modern coffee and tea houses, beverage kiosks and dessert bars.

“In Asia, consumers are moving from traditional ‘straight’ brews to drinks with dairy, as they look for a more indulgent way to enjoy their daily fix of coffee or tea,” says Ms Cassidy.

The trend of adding dairy to more traditional beverages started in China with the tea macchiato, which is green tea topped with a mix of cream and cream cheese.

“This trend was really driven by youth and took off, with people queuing for hours to get the latest creation from their favourite tea house.”

“We moved quickly and as a result the tea macchiato alone grew the volume of our cream and cream cheese sales by 47% in the first half of the 2017/18 financial year.”

Since the start of 2018 Beverage House has sold more than 30,000 metric tonnes of product, enough to create the equivalent of more than 400 million tea macchiatos.

“Beverage House has mainly been focussed on China so far, but the potential for growth in other markets is huge. We are now using what we’ve learnt to look at other markets where beverages with dairy are growing in popularity.”

Beverage House sits alongside Fonterra’s existing Foodservice channels: Quick Serve Restaurants, Italian Kitchen and Asian Bakery.

“Having a standalone channel within our Foodservice business means we can be more targeted with the service we offer our beverage customers and gain a better understanding of changing consumer tastes and trends,” says Ms Cassidy.

Shifting more milk, quicker, into value-added products through our Consumer and Foodservice business is a key part of Fonterra’s strategy to add more value to our farmers’ milk.