Before we look at who
is winning the Australian tea wars, it’s probably most instructive to look at
what type of tea is winning. Because, as you will see, one is clearly
influencing the other.
To illustrate what is
going on in the Australian tea market, I have concocted this graph in the form
of a planogram. I call it a
planograph.
Here we have a
planograph of the types of tea that Australian tea drinkers were enjoying back
in 2012, according to the Retail World Annual Report.
And here we have a
planograph of the types of tea that Australian tea drinkers enjoyed just last
year – 2015.
So what can we tell
from this?
To begin with, black
tea, although still by far by the dominant tea in Australia, the mainstay of
the Australian tea market whose bitter goodness has given generations of
Australians something to dunk their biscuits into?
It remains what most
people think of, when they think of a nice relaxing cup of tea.
It is however a category
in decline. According to the scan data
quoted in Retail World’s Annual Report black tea made up 70% value market share
in 2012, but that has fallen down to 64.5% in 2015. Not a revolutionary shift perhaps, but
certainly a significant one.
Let’s look at another
data source. Australia’s tea import
figures, as quoted by UN Comtrade. Since – other than the quite popular Madura and Nerada brands – the vast majority of tea in Australia is imported, these should give us
a good idea of the condition of the market. The caveat has to be made of course
that not all of this is being sold through supermarkets. Some is being served in cafes, and wherever
else people drink tea. Probably a lot of
old aged homes.
But it should serve well
as a guide. A guide that is pointing downwards.
So what are the tea
drinkers of Australia drinking? Green tea?
Yes, and – making up 11% of the retail tea market, up from about 8% in
2012 - it is growing at a decent rate.
But that’s certainly not all.
The biggest change is the
growing popularity of what Retail World’s Annual Report has decided to call
“herbal and fruit infusions.” This category made up 18.2% of tea sold through
Australian supermarkets in 2015, up from 13.9% in 2012. This is the stuff that is changing the game!
And this – as any
black tea enthusiast will tell you, and any glance at the ingredients list on a
box of “herbal and fruit infusion” will confirm – is a deeply ironic
situation. For the vast majority of
“herbal and fruit infusion” teas do not contain any tea at all.
The fastest growing
segment in the Australian tea market essentially contains virtually anything
that is not actually tea!
Or, as the commentssection of a Guardian article on the rise of “craft tea” put it rather more
bluntly:
“Half
the crap they're drinking isn't even tea.
Y'know, a
random scraping of rainforest humus and that potpourri that great aunt of yours
has in that little dish on that hallway table where she keeps the telephone
isn't tea.”
Quite.
But that doesn’t stop
it from being quite lovely stuff.
I haven’t mentioned
the final category of tea: “milk/latte style teas,” which is mostly made up of
chai tea. This too is a category in
decline. As recently as 2012, milk/latte
style teas sold almost as much as green tea.
Now it’s only about half as much.
I would suggest –
based I admit on nothing more than personal experience - that this is because
whilst it has been difficult for the cafes of Australia to convince the tea
drinkers of Australia that they can brew a better cup than you can in the
privacy of your own home, this is not the case in relation to chai tea. Your local café can almost certainly serve
you a better cup of chai than what you can get at the supermarket. If they can’t, it’s time to find a new local.
All of which is great
news for growers of camomile blossoms or strawberry petals. It is not good news at all however for tea
farmers. And is most definitely not good
news for Lipton, who until a couple of years ago was Australia’s favourite tea
brand, and a brand whose product assortment is strongly skewed towards black
tea.
So based on these
trends, what brands are winning the tea battle of the brands?