Customize your offerings with some easy tweaks and you’ll have a premium beverage worth a premium price.
The arrival of warmer weather heralds a beverage menu pivot to summertime’s ever-popular iced tea, lemonade, and juice. There are many ways to turn these dependable refreshers into high-impact, premium offerings.
Offering flavored varieties is a great tactic for enticing customers to order iced tea and lemonade. Specialties like mango, peach, passion fruit, and pomegranate are growing in popularity, as customers look for something a little different in their beverage choices.
Did You Know?
Lemonade is one of the fastest-growing menu items, with year over year growth of 18%.1
1“State of the Menu 2022,” by Technomic
Some additional ideas for creating summer signatures with iced tea and lemonade include:
Try mixing lemonade or iced tea with on-trend “superfood” ingredients like turmeric or ginger, cinnamon, goji or acai berries, or coconut water/milk to leverage growing interest in probiotics.
Mix tea with cherry limeade or pineapple juice for a sweet and fruity specialty.
Look to tea and lemonade—classic or flavored/infused—as a refreshing premium “mixer” for mocktails.
Juices are another beverage category that responds well to tweaking, innovation, and promotion, particularly in the area of blends. Not only can juices be mixed together to create new flavors, they can also be used to boost flavor in smoothies.
In fact, mixing two or more juices together is a great way to cross-utilize an existing inventory of basic juices, such as orange or apple. And creating unusual combinations like pineapple-lemonade or orange-tomato (similar to the Mexican sangrita used as a tequila chaser but delicious on its own) makes for signature beverage offerings.
Consumer demand is also currently fueling the growth of functional, or enhanced, beverages.
80% of consumers are interested in functional beverages.2
2Datassential, Functional Beverages, March 2021
In a nutshell, functional beverages are drinks that contain significant levels of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients with the intent of providing health benefits to consumers. Consumers want to feel good about their beverage choices, but also want drinks to be flavorful and delicious. Give your customers the juice, teas, and lemonade they want, featuring a short list of ingredients. Try serving functional beverages over ice or as part of signature menu items like smoothies, slushies, or cocktails.
Continue reading on the following pages for more tips to enhance your summer beverage program.
Articles
Ideas to Freshen up Your Lemonade and Juice MenusSpecialty Iced Tea and Lemonade: Premium Summer RefreshersSummer Beverage Trends, from Simple to ArtisanalIced Tea Is Hotter Than EverRefreshing Summer Beverages: Lemonade and BeyondRefreshing Summer Beverages: Iced Tea and KombuchaSmoothies & Juices Drive GrowthWhip Up Excitement with Blended BeveragesCheck Out These New Blended Beverage Ideas
Infographic: Signature Lemonade and Juice
Infographic: Botanical Beverages
Recipes
Nestle Vitality Flavor That Delivers Recipe GuidePeach Lemon Ginger Frozen LemonadeBlood Orange Passionfruit MocktiniWatermelon Raspberry Basil Lemonade CoolerPassion Fruit Iced TeaCitrus TeaOrange Ancho MargaritaVery Berry Iced Tea
Nestlé® Vitality® Hand Mix Products
Nestlé® Vitality® Touchless Dispensing
Nestlé® Vitality® Enhanced Cold Beverages
Functional Beverages Infographic
Nestlé® Vitality® Blackberry Hibiscus Lemonades
Video: Nestlé® Vitality® Flavor Flip™
