Single-serve tea capsule market continues upward trend
Sales of tea packaged in single-serve portions are gathering pace and may account for up to 10% of all US tea retail sales in 2015. This stems from the growing popularity of tea and a significant household penetration of single-serve brewers. About 32 million households are currently equipped with such brewing systems. Despite exact numbers being hard to come by because many companies do not break down sales between loose teas, teabags and capsules, Euromonitor says they accounted for 6% of tea sales in 2014, compared to 4.5% in 2012 and 2% in 2009. According to Dan Bolton, an industry expert, sales of capsules may even reach 10% of all tea retail sales in 2015. In terms of value, the US pod market has tripled in size over the last five years. 14 billion capsules are expected to be shipped in 2015 in total, with 20% of them filled with tea.