AriZona Arnold Palmer Now in Canada

BevWire just found AriZona Arnold Palmer in a convenience store earlier this week, and was pleasantly surprised it was a glass bottle.  Naturally I had to buy it – this drink is normally found in an aluminum can, and has always been in the United States save for a few small corner stores bringing it across the border themselves.  Apparently it has made its entry into the Canadian market now.  AriZona has launched two new tea beverages, one is the Arnold Palmer half tea half lemonade beverage and the other is a Raspberry Tea.

Not fully confident that the Raspberry Tea will do well, since every company already has a raspberry tea offering.  It almost seems like a copycat innovation for them, relying on AriZona brand name to sell the tea rather than the tea being good itself.  Not that the AriZona Arnold Palmer Tea is any different for relying on the brand name, but there has been such a cult following for this flavor making it likely to succeed more so than the Raspberry Tea.  And there aren’t too many half tea half lemonade offerings out there, making this a unique combination without much competition.  Nestea and Lipton are the main competitors in this ready-to-drink tea.  Nestea offers their beverages in both plastic and glass bottles, as well as aluminum cans.  However, their glass bottle flavors haven’t done too well (remember the Nestea Vitao series, which has all but disappeared from stores by now).  So that makes Nestea not a close competitor for AriZona.  Lipton on the other side has glass bottles but nothing remotely close to the Arnold Palmer flavor.  Furthermore, most of their innovations are in the plastic bottles (Lipton Sparkling, diet flavors, and carbonated flavored teas) so they are not too strong of a competitor for AriZona either.

That said, who knows if Nestea or Lipton will come out with a Arnold Palmer copycat (like how everyone has a Raspberry tea flavor).  In the meantime, consumers that were introduced to the Arnold Palmer tea before but could not get it in Canada can now rest easy – it will likely be found at gas stations and supermarkets as well as the local corner store.