Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
Why Americans Love Iced Coffee | CNBC | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Why Americans Love Iced Coffee
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
The consumption of cold coffee, including iced and cold brew, has surged dramatically in the U.S., driven by younger generations and influenced by major coffee chains, transforming it into an anytime beverage and a significant market segment.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
Between 2016 and 2023, consumer spending on cold
coffee – which includes iced coffee, cold brew and frozen
coffee drinks – more than doubled in the U.S.
Hot coffee, on the other hand, grew about 20%.
Lots of ice is key, we want it super, super cold.
You know
I see an iced coffee being made on social media and
they're shaking their ice around. I'm like, well, maybe
I want an iced coffee now.
Like, it truly works.
You can see that iced coffee really is at the forefront of
advertising for chains like Dunkin'.
The company told CNBC that since 2019, it's grown its
iced drinks by 50%, and they now represent two-thirds of
its total beverage sales.
It can be ten degrees and snow will be falling, and there
will be people who will be clutching their cold brew
coffees as they walk to work.
And that was not the case until relatively recently.
So why do Americans love putting this traditionally hot
beverage over ice?
And will cold brew and iced coffee eventually take over?
Americans spent nearly $88 billion on out-of-home coffee
purchases in 2023.
Vanilla latte? About 20% of that was on cold coffee.
But tracking at-home cold coffee consumption can be
hard.
A lot of people are taking standard ground coffee,
putting it in, you know, a pitcher or something and
letting it brew overnight, and making cold brew.
And how on earth do you track that?
And the answer is, you can't.
Sales at coffeehouse chains can help paint a clearer
picture. Starbucks controls about 25% of the U.S.
Coffee and Snack shop market.
The way it usually works in the U.S.
is that, coffee trends start at the coffee shop and above
all, at the big chains like Starbucks.
So, the way to look at it is, when did they really start
pushing the cold beverages?
That's about when cold brews start reaching those
restaurant menus. And then that shapes what good coffee
is thought to be like in the minds of consumers, which then
in turn shapes things like their at-home consumption
patterns.
From 2013 to 2021, Starbucks U.S.
cold beverage sales grew from less than 40% to 75% of all
drinks sold.
It's important to note that this includes non-coffee
drinks as well.
For Dutch Bros, a West coast-based coffee chain, cold
drinks account for about 90% of its beverage sales.
About half of that is cold coffee.
The rise of caffeinated alternatives like energy
drinks may help explain the appeal of iced coffee as well.
Americans love of soft drinks in general.
So, the view is, how can we make coffee into a soft drink?
In the U.S., ready to drink coffee is almost always drank
cold, and consumption is up over 40% between 2019 and
2023. That is much higher than the global growth rate.
Even without Japan, who accounts for about half of the
total market and disproportionately skews the
data.
When you look at the big chains, they shape consumer
tastes, but they also reflect consumer tastes.
And so I think there's a little bit of both happening
there, right where consumers clearly are asking more for
cold beverages.
That's driven largely by Gen Z, by millennials.
The skew is pretty clear that the younger consumers prefer
cold coffees, iced cold brew, etc..
The divide between iced versus hot coffee drinkers is largely
generational. Americans age 18 to 24 are the largest
consumers of cold coffee.
A survey found that about half of respondents had it
within the past day.
The second largest cold-coffee drinking cohort
was respondents aged 25 to 39.
And there was a big drop off then in the Gen X and the
boomers. They'll drink cold coffees.
They'll drink some cases, cold brews or iced coffee, but
it's really more like a summertime thing when it's hot
out. Whereas the millennials and especially Gen Z really
broke free of that seasonality. And that's the
key difference, is that they view it as an anytime beverage
rather than a seasonal thing.
As a Gen Z coffee drinker myself, I almost always opt
for an iced coffee. And for me personally, it's because it
lasts longer than a hot coffee.
If I'm at the office, I want something that I can sit at my
desk and sip on for a few hours.
I think there's definitely less exploration.
There is less cravings for variety with those older
generations. Since coffee has such an established background
as this hot beverage, I think it's kind of hard to break
that mindset with a generation that for so much of
their lifetime, it has just been that hot beverage.
A 2023 Mintel report found that 26% of U.S.
teens consume cold coffee, while about 18% consume hot.
One reason behind its popularity amongst younger
generations is because it's an easier entry to coffee.
It's highly customizable, and you can add lots of flavors
and toppings that help divert from the natural, bitter taste
of coffee.
Increasingly, that younger consumer that is not just
asking for a very plain cup of hot coffee, right?
They want a coffee based beverage that has something
more to it, and I think that's reflected in that
marketing and promotions.
Thank you. Enjoy, have a nice
day. The clear plastic cups that cold coffee typically
comes in lends itself very well to the age of social
media. These new drinks are a Starbuck's Wicked
collaboration, so you can see that the foam on top is
actually green, and as you swirl it around, it mixes into
the drink. There's some like, sparkles on top.
All of these colors and esthetics simply wouldn't be
possible if it were a hot drink. Even though many
younger Americans view cold coffee as an all year round
beverage, companies like Starbucks have seen a clear
dip in the winter months.
One of the reasons Europe hasn't fully adopted, cold
coffee, is because of, I think, the climate, and
they're still largely driven by hot coffee, and, you know,
especially in northern Europe.
Americans as coffee drinkers, are much more experimental,
right? They don't have a very strong coffee culture that
you'd find in a place like a Brazil or Turkey, Italy.
There's that long historical tradition, a sense of here's
how we make coffee. Traditionally, Americans are
much more into trying new things in terms of the trends
right now spreading around the world, things like cold
brew, like nitro. They're coming from the United States.
Many coffee makers like Nespresso and Keurig are
jumping on the iced coffee bandwagon, too.
Nespresso released a ready to drink canned beverage for the
first time this summer, and Keurig is now selling a coffee
machine that brews hot and then flash chills it to make
ice coffee.
Still, cold brew and iced coffee have some ways to go
before catching up to their hot counterpart.
Hot coffee is still by far the most popular way Americans
consume coffee.
Though a big part of our growth expectation is just
that more and more restaurants and food service
operators are going to add this to the menu.
And so our expectations are very bullish for growth of the
cold coffee category over the next five years.
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
