Just Ice parent shifting scarce resources to fast-growing tea, pulling back on snacks

Eat the Change, the owner of tea brand Just Ice, is focusing its limited resources on its fast-growing beverage and reducing further investment in its snacks business, said co-founder and chief change agent Seth Goldman said in an interview.

“I still believe in the [snacking] concept, but it’s just not as compelling as a business perspective,” Goldman told Food Dive at the Beverage Forum in California last week. “I just don’t know that with our limited resources that we can do both. We still call ourselves Eat the Change, but essentially we’re morphing into Just Iced tea as a business.”

Eat the Change started in 2020 to sell environmentally friendly, nutrient-dense snacks made from carrots, mushrooms and other plant ingredients.

But after Coca-Cola announced in 2022 that it would discontinue Honest tea, a brand Goldman co-founded 24 years earlier, Eat the Change branched into beverages. Goldman bet there was still consumer demand for an organic, less sweet tea offering that Honest pioneered. His hunch proved correct. Sales of Just Ice, which totaled $16 million in 2023, are forecast to top $20 million this year.

Sales of snacks, however, are trailing the “phenomenal” growth the company is experiencing in tea. Eat the Change discontinued its snacks made from mushrooms in 2023. It continues selling fruit chews made with carrots and fruit juice.

While the Maryland-based company remains in the snacks business, its marketing and R&D spending is going entirely toward tea. 

Goldman said the snacking business remains a great opportunity, noting the need for kids to eat more vegetables.

“Maybe down the road … they’ll be an opportunity to go back into snacks but for now we’re a small company focused on our biggest growth opportunity,” he said. “A lot of times the market makes the decisions for you. So in this case, the market is definitely saying we love the tea and not as much enthusiasm for the snacks.”

Just Ice is already the best-selling bottled tea brand at Whole Foods and natural channels. Goldman noted that Whole Foods, which carries both its snacks and beverages, sells about $350 worth of tea a week at each store compared to only $13 for its snacks.