Juicy boost for healthy tea from Northern Ireland

An innovative Vitamin Tea has been launched by Boosted Tea, a recently established speciality beverage company in Northern Ireland.

Based at Portadown in county Armagh, Boosted Tea has been formed by experienced businessman Arin Cubuk. He created Vitamin Tea as a healthy drink that's free from sugar and calories and is produced from natural ingredients.

Mr Cubuk, who has a successful career in international sales, launched the initial three-strong range of soft drinks following research over the past two years into market opportunities and juice-based products. Vitamin Tea is available in 500ml bottles at RRP £1.99. The company also plans to introduce the range in 330ml cans. Currently, there are three flavours - Pure Green (Pear and Passion Fruit), Mellow Yellow (Apple and Peach) and Cherry Red (Strawberry and Cherry).

"With the increase of sugar filled drinks in our shops, which are increasingly seen as contributing to health problems such as obesity and diabetes, I've developed Vitamin Tea with the intention of helping to remedy this, not only by offering drinks without the unnecessary sugars but also by providing a better tasting alternative. Each drink contains its own unique boosted blend of infused teas, juice and vitamins," he says.

He sources tea from Sri Lanka and uses it to infuse a range of natural fruit flavours such as cherry, strawberry, apple, peach, pear and passion fruit.

Mr Cubuk turned to WILD Flavours and Speciality Ingredients, headquartered at Heidelberg in Germany, for help in creating the distinctively different and delicious flavours. "We had an idea of what we wanted and the flavours we wished to use," he continues.

"Together with WILD, we had countless tastings going back and forth through many different variations until we found the ideal flavours. It was a tremendous experience working with a specialist such as WILD Flavours which has vast knowledge and expertise in developing innovative flavours and speciality ingredients," he adds.

The next challenge was to find the right business to produce and bottle the new beverages.

"I was fortunate to find Norbev in Ballymena to undertake this role. They were prepared to work with me, someone with relatively little experience in juices, and believed in what was a completely new and totally different product."

Arin invested in creating a striking design for packaging the bottles to help set them apart in the chill cabinets. "We had to make a firm statement that Vitamin Tea is totally different in what is a fiercely competitive marketplace. Vitamin Tea had to stand out, and I believe that the design achieves this," he continues.

The start-up enterprise then had to pinpoint a route to market. He could either have chosen to market the new drinks himself or find a suitable distributor prepared to add such a novel range of soft drinks to its existing portfolio, not an easy task for a business with such a limited track record.

He decided to put his faith in an established distributor and pitched to C&C in Dublin, one of the biggest distributors in the UK and Ireland. "I sent samples to C&C and marketed my business idea to them. I was delighted when such an influential and successful business in the industry decided to take Vitamin Tea on board. It was a marvellous and tremendously encouraging boost. They clearly believed in the potential of my Vitamin Tea range," he says.

The new product has already won business in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and other European markets.