Iced Coffee Innovation

I have proclaimed my undying love for iced coffee, rain or shine, sun or snow, before. So naturally, new products in the space (like Anchorhead’s Hopped Up Cold Brew or Krispy Kreme’s RTD option) grab my attention. This year’s Private Label Manufacturer’s Association show, which took place in November at the Rosemont Convention Center in Chicago, contained a few products to entice iced coffee devotees—but the most exciting one was certainly from B.O.V. Solutions. B.O.V. stands for bag on valve, and it is a type of technology that can be used for many things—including cooking oil sprays, cold and allergy sprays, gels and creams—the most interesting of which, in my opinion, is coffee. As an alternative to aerosol technology, B.O.V. provides “total separation of product from propellant, allowing product to remain sterile from first use to last,” say officials for the company. Because the product is protected in its bag and never mixed with the propellants, the shelf life is longer—actually unlimited, according to one official working the company’s booth. Essentially, B.O.V.’s product is cold brew coffee in its purest form. Consumers purchase a bottle of the product and squirt some into water to get cold, ready-to-drink coffee (that does not taste watered down, I tried it). It is as simple as that, and an innovation that I never expected. Apparently I wasn’t the only one pleasantly surprised, as it even won the PLMA Innovation Award. As someone who makes my own iced coffee most days, this product really could be life changing for me. Unlike those lucky hot coffee drinkers who are able to come into the office and quickly brew a hot cup each morning, a lot more goes into the preparation of my own daily fix—all of which would be eliminated by a bottle of B.O.V. Additionally, the product will contain 24 servings per can, at a price of just $7.99—which comes to just 33 cents a cup, a major savings on a usually pricy product. As revealed in a survey by Multi-sponsor Surveys, I am not alone—69 percent of cold coffee drinkers have tried a RTD option, and interest is only growing. As B.O.V. is marketing its new innovation for the private label market, grocers would be wise to check the company out.