The Honest truth: Just Ice Tea filling void left by Coca-Coca

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Three years after Coca-Cola stopped production of Honest Tea, the organic, low-sugar brand co-founded by Seth Goldman, the entrepreneur insists he has no ill will toward the beverage giant. 

“People say, ‘Are you mad at Coca-Cola?’ I say, ‘How could I be mad?’ … I obviously would have never wished for Honest Tea to have been discontinued, but now that it has, we've been presented with an amazing business opportunity.”

That amazing business opportunity is Just Ice Tea, a beverage that's now one of the fastest-growing brands in the natural foods sector, according to the company. It recently became the ninth best-selling, ready-to-drink tea in the U.S. grocery channel, leapfrogging Coca-Cola’s Peace Tea, NIQ data showed.

Goldman believes Just Ice Tea, which has many of the same attributes as Honest, has the potential to become a $1 billion brand. Just Ice Tea's position over Peace, which Coca-Cola prioritized when it decided to shutter Honest, only further vindicates Goldman's strategy.

“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,” he said.

Just Ice Tea builds on what Honest started

Just Ice Tea was started by Goldman in 2022 with celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn and Yale professor and Honest tea co-founder Barry Nalebuff only four months after Coca-Cola’s surprising announcement to discontinue Honest tea. 

The trio believed there was still consumer demand for an organic, less sweet and Fair Trade-certified tea that Honest pioneered.

Their bet proved correct. Just Ice Tea sales totaled $16 million in 2023, its first full year on the market, and they are forecast to top $30 million this year. 

The brand’s torrid growth is set to get another boost. Just Ice Tea recently entered mainstream stores such as Target, selected Walmarts and CVS, effectively doubling its store count to 12,000 and broadening its reach beyond the natural channel that it dominates.

The marketplace has changed significantly since Honest Tea was founded almost three decades ago.

Organic, low sugar, Fair Trade and sustainability — industry buzzwords when Honest Tea started out —  are now common parlance for products today.

“The market is more primed for this than it was going back to 1998 where all of those things were foreign concepts,” Goldman said.

While Just Ice Tea shares many of Honest Tea’s characteristics, it has some differences. 

Just Ice Tea uses agave instead of sugar as part of its goal to support biodiversity in agriculture. It also eschews plastic in favor of glass and aluminum to improve the environmental footprint of its packaging.

The beverage also has a broader flavor profile than other teas on the market. 

While several of Just Ice Tea’s flavors are reincarnations of the most popular Honest tea offerings, including Honey Green and Peach Oolong, it has worked with Mendelsohn on offerings that stand out in the market, such as Orange Mango Herbal Fusion and Berry Hibiscus Herbal Tea.

Eventually, Just Ice could go beyond tea, much like Honest did with launches such as Honest Kids, a low-sugar juice that Coca-Cola still sells. The opportunities are “wide and varied,” Goldman said, declining to name what options have been discussed. 

For now, though, Just Ice Tea will focus on growing its portfolio of 14 flavors before releasing more to the market.

“We love innovating,” he said. “But we’ve got to be responsible in selling our existing offerings.”