Bringing attention to iced tea innovation
Yaí, a Brazilian beverage brand known for its range of iced teas, first launched its products in 2019. With years of experience in ingredient innovation and a desire to grow, the brand wanted to explore ways to appeal to more consumers. The challenge was to identify the right opportunities, and we helped uncover them with marketing support, category insights and data about emerging trends.
Making an impact in a category is often about timing. If you can get ahead of a trend and meet consumer demands at the right moment, there’s a higher chance of success. This was certainly the case for Yaí and its range of ready-to-drink (RTD) teas.
“With the tea category growing, we sensed this shift in the market toward healthier products,” explains Paulo Sudre, Commercial Director at Yaí. “We saw that there weren’t many brands in the market and that good flavours were missing. That’s when we said, ‘let’s enter the market.’”
Yaí launched its first RTD tea products in late 2019, and the focus was to offer products that used more unusual fruits to stand out from the standard range of RTD teas.
“We wanted to move a little away from the traditional flavours, like lemon and lychee, and go with some more Brazilian fruits, so to speak,” says Paulo. “We ended up choosing jaboticaba, which we found really interesting.”
With any ingredient innovation, getting consumers to try the product is essential. Whereas consumers know what to expect from an RTD tea with lemon flavouring, jaboticaba was something different, so Yaí needed to get the product into the hands of their potential customers to be able to convince them.
“In-store tastings are what really makes an impact for us. That’s where we can actually see the results,” says Andre Sudre, Operations Director at Yaí.
This meant a lot of samples, tasting events, and trade shows. Yaí found that once people had tried the product, they enjoyed it, and this is where we were able to help. This started off with marketing support, and has continued to evolve as the collaboration has deepened.
“Today, Tetra Pak® is essential to us in terms of this support, in market research, product types, and even packaging: what packaging to launch, how to launch it, the size, the proportions, and so on,” adds Paulo. “With the support that the Tetra Pak team has been giving us, it helps us enter the market with more confidence, make fewer mistakes, and learn a little more about the landscape.”
With our market research and insights, and the category expertise that Yaí has built up, there are plans in place for a number of product launches that are designed to meet the demands of today’s consumers.
One is a 100% fruit juice, a first for the business that’s looking to appeal to new audiences. Another is targeted at the ever-growing food supplement and nutrition category.
“We’re going to launch Brazil’s first protein tea in Tetra Pak packaging, with 15 grams of protein,” says Paulo.
These decisions have been made with our help, as we have been able to provide the insights and research that have pointed towards the right opportunities for innovation. By taking an approach that’s backed up by real data, product launches are more likely to succeed. From there, the right package also helps to make an impact.
“We know that packaging is everything at the point of sale, right? We live and breathe that every day,” says Paulo. “We know that what matters is the packaging: it has to grab people’s attention.”
Andre adds: “When you look at our product on the shelf, in a store that actually displays five or six flavours and puts out a good amount of stock, it’s a product that catches your eye. It stands out in the aisle; the packaging has a sense of joy to it.”
As Yaí grows and continues to innovate with its range of beverages, our collaboration goes from strength to strength.
“I can now work with Tetra Pak on market research, understand what’s worth launching, which flavours work well, and which categories are promising,” says Paulo. “So, today, Tetra Pak is essential for us whenever we’re launching a product.”
What’s next for Yaí? The brand has no shortage of inspiration and ideas, and will maintain the approach that’s brought the success so far.
“We want to maintain the agility of a small company,” says Andre, “and we want to sustain our position as a cool, family-run company that pays attention to trends.”
