Fuze Tea — Wholesale Supply

Sugar is part of the specification now

Before you decide the flavour split, decide the sugar split. On ready-to-drink tea that ordering of the questions is not pedantry: in several destinations the two variants of the same flavour land at different costs, and by enough that a shelf plan built purely on taste can be the wrong shelf plan commercially. Iguazu Trading exports EU-produced Fuze Tea from Madrid as an independent distributor of genuine brand-owner stock, in the manufacturer's own sealed packaging.

A number of markets tax sweetened beverages, and an increasing share of them assess it in bands keyed to sugar content per volume rather than as a flat charge on value. The United Kingdom operates a banded levy of that kind on soft drinks; several Gulf states levy excise on sweetened drinks. Where a banded system applies, the proportion of standard to reduced-sugar stock inside a container moves your landed cost, sometimes by more than a difference in freight would.

We do not calculate anyone's excise, and we would be doing you no favours by pretending otherwise. The banding, the definitions, the registration obligations and the rate all sit with the authority at destination and with your own broker, and they change. What we do is state the variant and the declared composition taken from the pack for every line on the offer, so the calculation can be run before the stock is reserved, and quote two variant splits side by side if you want to see the comparison rather than argue it. Buyers shipping into the region will find the market context in our note on supplying the UAE.

Where the variants differ

Reduced-sugar and no-added-sugar lines are separate SKUs with their own barcodes and their own rotation, not a labelling variation on the standard product. The fruit-forward black-tea variants and the lighter green-tea and botanical blends are not formulated alike either. We do not publish composition figures here, because the only figure worth having is the one printed on the pack in the allocation you are being offered, and that is what goes on the offer.

Build the range by occasion, not by flavour

The mistake that produces a slow-moving tail is starting from a flavour list. Start from the pack ladder instead. There is an impulse and vending unit, a convenience and forecourt unit, and a take-home grocery unit, and each one answers a different purchase occasion in a different part of the store. Decide how many facings each tier gets first; only then decide how many flavours sit inside each tier.

On the black-tea base, peach and lemon do the volume nearly everywhere and belong at the centre of a first order. The chamomile-and-mango blend and the green-tea variants play a different role: they earn a second facing and reach a shopper the anchors miss, but drop the anchors and the set stops working. Local extensions surface where a market's taste supports them. Send the destination and the quotation is written against what has genuinely been allocated for it, not against a list that reads well.

Why the category history matters to a buyer rebuilding a shelf

Distributors who have carried this category for a while are usually filling a hole rather than opening a section. Across most of Europe this became the iced tea inside the Coca-Cola system once the older Nestea licensing arrangement ended, and the shopper a distributor originally built that facing for has not gone anywhere.

The trap is treating the changeover as a variant-for-variant substitution. The previous set rested on a different range architecture, so copying it item by item recreates a shelf that matches neither current availability nor current demand. Rebuilt by occasion instead, the section becomes something you can reorder to a rhythm rather than a tail of slow variants that each fail to justify their pallet. Fixtures with room for more than one tea tier normally keep Lipton Ice Tea as the mainstream anchor and place this line next to or beneath it.

Composing the container

There is a plain operational reason to buy this from a desk already moving the wider portfolio. Allocation and shipping run alongside the other Coca-Cola system brands we handle, so a container assembled around Coca-Cola volume can absorb a tea block without a second sourcing route being opened for it. Where a mixer wall is also in the book, Kinley joins the same booking, and three parts of the range then travel on one negotiation, one pro-forma, one document set and one arrival.

How many cases sit in a layer, how the pallet is built and how many pallets reach the doors all depend on the format mix and the market the stock was produced in. They are therefore written into the pro-forma against real allocation instead of being promised beforehand. Because drinks loads reach their weight limit while floor space is still free, mixing brands and categories on a pallet is standard practice here, and the stacking plan is settled with you before the document is issued.

Terms, documents and quantities

Volumes begin at a case for a listing trial and extend to full container loads on repeat supply, with part-loads available while a line is still unproven. Goods leave our Madrid warehouse, which is inland; the deep-sea gateways are Valencia at around 355 km and Barcelona at around 620 km, Algeciras serves as the transhipment alternative and Coslada as the rail option. We quote EXW Madrid, which is our premises rather than a port, plus FOB, CFR, CIF and DAP; DDP is not offered as standard. Every consignment carries a commercial invoice, packing list, export declaration and transport document, with a Certificate of Origin, or a EUR.1 movement certificate where the destination holds a preferential agreement with the EU and the goods qualify.