Gallo Extends High Noon Into Hard Tea Category
May 6, 2024Spirit of Gallo’s High Noon is expanding into the hard iced tea market with a new variety pack, the first non-carbonated offering from the spirits RTD giant. High Noon’s vodka teas are rolling out now across the U.S. and come in four flavors—original, peach, raspberry, and lemon—all at 4.5% abv and 90 calories per can. The 8-packs, the exclusive debut for the vodka teas, carry a suggested retail price of $20. The move comes following an explosive few years for High Noon, which has rocketed ahead of all other spirits brands in the U.S. Last year, High Noon was up 33.5% to 21.9 million cases, according to Impact Databank. As recently as 2019, the brand was under 1 million cases.
After becoming the largest spirits brand in the U.S., the brand team took a step back to assess future plans, Britt West, executive vice president and general manager, Spirit of Gallo, tells SND. “We put forth a lot of different ideas of everything from way far out innovation to kind of closer-in innovation,” he says. “One of the interesting things that came back was that High Noon really stands for premium in the RTD space and it stands for good times in a low-abv situation.” He adds that Gallo’s insights showed that consumers didn’t see High Noon as exclusively tied to sparkling drinks or as a hard seltzer replacement.
This latest innovation, says West, is an opportunity to premiumize the hard tea category, which is largely dominated by malt-based drinks like Twisted Tea. “There’s a consumer out there that is looking for non-carbonation and they turn to tea a lot,” he says. “A lot of the other teas on the marketplace, of course, have either an artificial sweetener or they’re loaded with sugar.”
High Noon’s hard teas are rolling out now and should be available on retail shelves across the U.S. in the coming days with a major push leading to the Memorial Day holiday. For the wider High Noon brand, the plan is to continue what’s worked. “An expansion with the PGA is a major piece of our activation plan for the summer,” says West. Additionally, the brand recently launched a new ad campaign featuring “High Noon Lifestyle Guards,” specializing in solving summer problems like an empty cooler or a deflated pool toy.
As large as the brand is, West still sees runway for High Noon. He says 68% of High Noon’s volume comes from consumers switching to the brand from other beverage options, with 57% of those coming from malt-based alternatives. Yet High Noon still has white space in the chain-dominated western U.S. “In the independent markets, yes, it feels very saturated in terms of distribution, but we’re still gaining in the major western markets where the chain business is so predominant,” he says. “If you were to look at how did High Noon grow, it grew east to west, and so that chain piece for a lot of people is still new.”—Shane English
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