TEA
VOLUTION
How Finlays is investing in its tea extracts portfolio to help customers in this ever changing market
Words: Ryan Collins
Tea might be 4,000 years old, but as an industry it never stands still. It’s constantly adapting to consumer needs, particularly – at the moment – those of younger consumers. Here are three ways Finlays is investing in our US tea extracts portfolio to help customers tap into this ever-changing market.
Whether you’re a beverage manufacturer or a quick service restaurant crafting the perfect chai latte, liquid tea concentrates are a great option. They are hugely convenient and contain the very same healthy compounds found in leaf tea. But liquid tea concentrates can be challenging to develop because all the wonderful compounds that make tea healthy also interact in concentrate form and fall out. Following extensive investment over the past few years, Finlays has developed concentrates that remain stable in liquid form and we now have multiple liquid tea concentrate offerings that are shelf-stable.
Specialty tea extracts are a great way to premiumize products, but are challenging to produce at scale on large volume lines due to cleaning, downtime, and high Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs). To overcome this challenge for our customers, Finlays has invested in a brand-new, small-scale line at our Finlays Tea Extracts Kenya facility. This will allow us to offer specialty tea extracts with greater flexibility and speed, not to mention smaller MOQs, so our customers can more easily trial and introduce new products such as decaf, purple, or organic teas.
While botanicals aren’t a core offering of Finlays in the US, they are an area of growing importance as we aim to help our customers take advantage of the unique flavors and compounds offered by this growing space. Finlays is well placed in this area thanks to our joint venture with Damin, which is a market leader in botanical extracts in China. We’re now working on ways to leverage Damin’s expertise and coupling it with our own technical knowledge, to bring botanical extracts to the US market. Watch this space!
Finlays has developed concentrates that remain stable in liquid form and we now have multiple liquid tea concentrate offerings that are shelf-stable.
Finlays has been a leader in tea extraction for over 60 years, but we’re only just getting started. As the market develops, so are we, ensuring we continue to offer tea extract solutions aligned to market need for great tasting, easy-to-use, healthy beverages.
Ryan Collins
Marketing Manager – Tea Ryan.Collins@Finlays.net
