I kind of wish they would bite the bullet and make a can $1.99 and bring back the full flavor 90s version.
I was a lifeguard at a party for the ceo of Arizona iced tea. Never seen a house like that. Crazy how much money you can make selling sugar and water. From that experience they aren’t lacking.
[0]No ill will, just an observation and generalization.
The main additional costs are a bit more aluminum and some more water, everything else is comparable.
And the 99 cents is really tied to their brand; if they break it they get hurt more, so they'll push it as long as they "can" - likely introducing a smaller or larger can at some point.
Coca-Cola had a very similar issue way, way back in the day. I think they were pegged at 5 cents a bottle?
That left them in the even more awkward position of being unable to raise the price without instantly doubling it.
Their most profitable unit is the 20oz bottle that was $1 in 1999 and $2+ today.
I love this colloquialism.
(Grew up in Western PA. Sounds like home.)
Tea, even if it is cheap, is still much more expensive than corn syrup and water. So if you want to cut costs, it makes sense to reduce the amount of tea and make up for it with more sugar.
If you do it a little bit over 30 year years, few people with notice. You get a panel of taste testers compare the current version with a slightly watered down version and see if they can tell the difference. If most can't, you make the change and pocket the savings as profit. It's like making a copy of a copy on a copy machine, you can't tell much difference between the two, but repeating the process over multiple generations and the small differences adds up to be dramatic between the original and the 30th generation version.
This exact situation happens for many food companies. They gradually reduce quality and costs over the years. And once the people who remembered the original product die off or forget, it can be hard to re-establish yourself as anything but a cheap brand.
Five cents is a big cut of a $0.50 product.
No, my point is that if you want to cut costs, why would you focus on the cheapest (perhaps not in the overall sense, but in the total value of the product) ingredient that actually gives you the most "bang for the buck".
I would imagine that slight packaging changes could provide much more savings without changing the taste of what actually goes in your mouth.