Gizmo Beverages LLC has a new twist on ready-to-drink tea, and executives hope that will translate to licensing deals for their bottle cap technology.
Its Tea of a Kind drinks come in clear water-filled bottles with the brewed tea contained in a pressurized chamber in the cap, called a “closure.” That keeps the ingredients fresh without preservatives. With the first twist of the cap, the chamber releases the tea into the water; a second twist opens the bottle.
“It literally explodes into the beverage,” said Walter Apodaca, Gizmo’s president, who has worked for Coca-Cola Co. and MillerCoors LLC. He was one of the executives responsible for the Coors beer can that changes colors when it gets cold.
Apodaca and Chief Executive Don Park co-founded the company in 2011 to create a beverage brand that used the caps. The company has 1,200 points of distribution, including Pavilions, Kroger Co. and BevMo stores.
Gizmo has 18 employees, 12 of them working at its office in the downtown Los Angeles Fashion District while six work elsewhere as market managers. Its tea comes in three flavors, including peach ginger, citrus mint, and pomegranate and acai.
Before Tea of a Kind, Park had looked for licensing deals with major beverage companies for the cap technology. But he balked when they heard what the companies wanted to do with it.
“They wanted to put an equivalent of a Red Bull into the closure and deliver it into the equivalent of a Mountain Dew,” Apodaca said. “We were not going to put anything in the closure that wasn’t good for people.”
Not everyone is convinced the technology or the tea will take off.
Tom Pirko, president of beverage industry consultancy Bevmark LLC in Buellton, which is about 30 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, said consumers might flinch at a product that requires additional work to mix the drink, even if it merely means an extra twist.
“Getting them to do anything extra is a formidable challenge,” he said. “There are behavioral impediments you’ve got to overcome.”
Still, now that the brand is gaining shelf space, Apodaca said the company is working on licensing deals with companies that could use the caps for products including baby formula and cocktails.
“We’re going to develop applications that we can do really well on our own, and we’re going to let very creative people create applications as well,” he said.
– Ryan Faughnder
