Some brands retire. Some brands reload. When Coca-Cola shelved Honest Tea in 2022, most people saw a sunset. Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff saw unfinished business. Add chef Spike Mendelsohn to the mix and what you get is not nostalgia. You get Just Ice Tea, launched under Eat the Change, brewed organic, Fair Trade, and ready to drink with a conscience.
Just Ice Tea stepped back into a category the founders helped define, but this time with sharper edges. Organic leaves. Fair Trade certification. Real brewed tea in glass bottles and cans. Sweetened with agave and honey, never cane sugar. Or not sweetened at all. Just Sweet Enough is not a slogan. It is a line in the sand for consumers who are tired of syrup masquerading as tea.
In June 2024, Just Ice Tea secured $9M in Series B funding to expand retail distribution and introduce new flavors. Taste Tomorrow Ventures came in as a strategic equity partner through its $30M Fund I. Polar Strategic Ventures joined the round. Executives from Big Geyser put skin in the game. When beverage veterans write checks, they are not buying vibes. They are buying velocity.
Distribution now stretches to more than 12,000 stores nationwide, with plans to push beyond 17,000. Target. CVS. Grocery shelves that understand organic is not a trend, it is table stakes. That kind of footprint does not happen because of a clever label. It happens because operators know how to build supply chains, nurture distributor relationships, and protect margin while protecting mission.
Category credibility compounds. Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff did not start from zero. They started from trust. Trust with retailers. Trust with distributors. Trust with consumers who still wanted a tea that tasted like tea. When you combine that with Spike Mendelsohn’s chef driven approach to flavor, you are not guessing at product market fit. You are engineering it.
Taste Tomorrow Ventures choosing Just Ice Tea as its first strategic equity investment says something else. Capital is hunting for brands that balance growth with values. Organic and Fair Trade are not charity badges. They are strategic moats in a world where consumers read labels like contracts.
Just Ice Tea is not trying to dominate through noise. It is scaling through discipline. Through distribution math. Through ingredients you can pronounce. Through a supply chain that respects the people who grow the leaves. In a crowded ready to drink aisle, that kind of clarity cuts through.
