UK tea sales fall as consumers switch to herbal

The value of the tea market has only declined 6% in the last five years to £654m, as more expensive niche teas lead a counteroffensive against coffee.

Increasing popularity of coffee takes its toll, with sales of ordinary teabags falling from £491m in 2012 to £425m in 2014, according to latest figures. The volume of tea sold in the UK fell 22% to 76 million kg between 2010 and 2015, according to research by Mintel.

“It is widely accepted that tea is a good accompaniment to biscuits and cakes”.

While Mintel’s research paints a pretty bleak picture of Britain’s tea-drinking habits, the drink still seems to hold an important place in many people’s consciousness.

Tea brands can also promote new ways of consuming tea in order to appeal to a wider audience.

Well, kind of. Mintel’s report notes that while sales of ordinary brown tea bags fell by 13 percent between 2012 and 2014, sales of fruit and herbal teas rose by over 30 percent and green tea by 50 percent during the same period.

“Standard black tea is struggling to maintain consumers” interest amid growing competition from other drinks, ‘ said Emma Clifford, senior food and drink analyst at Mintel. “Reflecting a growing “foodie” culture in the United Kingdom, people are branching away from standard teabags and towards these more interesting alternatives”. Clifford said: “There has been a lot of innovation activity and premiumisation in coffee in recent years, with growth in premium formats like coffee pods and coffee beans”.

One reason fruit and herbal teas have done so well is because drinkers believe in the mood enhancement qualities of the drinks (43% agree that herbal teas can affect mood) and green tea is associated with health benefits.

“I think that there is scope for operators in the standard tea market to potentially increase the healthy image of these products as it is only green tea and fruit/herbal tea which now have strong associations with healthiness”, said Clifford. Tea consumption is expected to continue its decline at a slower rate, while the value of the market should start to increase from 2016.

However, the tea market hasn’t cooled entirely.

But Mintel said that Brits have also developed a thirst for alternative teas, a sector in which sales have boomed. “However, this is not expected to make up the shortfall from falling volumes of black tea”.