S&d Coffee & Tea Dominates World Tea Expo Annual Iced Tea Awards:five First Prizes Recognize Superior Flavor, Value In Foodservice

S&D Coffee & Tea, a leading provider of coffee and tea products to the foodservice and hospitality markets, recently won five first place prizes at the 2012 World Tea Expo, an event hosted by World Tea Media.

S&D's tea products earned four top prizes for flavor and one for value in foodservice applications. The awards included:

- Foodservice Black Unflavored/Unsweetened (fresh brewed tea) for S&D Premium Blend
- Best Foodservice Value for S&D Premium Blend Fresh Brewed
- Foodservice BIB (Bag-in-Box) Black-Flavored Tea for Teafinity Raspberry
- Tea Foodservice BIB Black Unflavored/Unsweetened for Teafinity Unsweet
- Foodservice BIB Black Sweetened for Teafinity Sweet.

"Everyone at S&D Coffee & Tea takes tremendous pride in and puts a great deal of effort into developing and differentiating our tea products and services," said Joe Doyle, Director of Tea Procurement and Tea Products. "We are pleased to have been chosen tops in a field of high-caliber companies. These awards serve as an affirmation of the high quality of our products, and the fact that we are truly a specialty tea company, rather than simply a packer - a fact our customers have long recognized."

The award-winning Teafinity product line was created by S&D in response to a need from restaurants, convenience stores, hotels and other institutions to serve iced tea in high volume, quick recover, low labor-cost applications. With no artificial flavors, S&D's Teafinity Natural Brewed Iced Tea is a concentrate made from real loose tea leaves and purified water and designed to deliver the quality and flavor of fresh-brewed tea in a more convenient and efficient way for foodservice operators. Through a proprietary system, Teafinity is also processed aseptically (using minimal preservatives).

"These awards certainly validate the notion that our Teafinity line of concentrate teas is similar in quality and taste to 'fresh brewed' tea," Mark Friday, a National Account Manager who oversees the Teafinity Product line added. "The days of liquid concentrate products struggling to gain acceptance when compared to fresh brew are over. With Teafinity, you get that clean, crisp, fresh taste without the liquid concentrate artificial overtones."

Building on its market success and industry recognition of its teas, S&D plans to release a host of new Teafinity products in the near future. Among these are:
- Raspberry
- Low Calorie Pomegranate Green Tea
- Tropical Black Tea
- Mango Green Tea

The company also expects to introduce a simplified, lower-cost equipment solution to complement the current Brewmaster System used to make Teafinity products.

The general public's consumption of iced tea is on the rise, according to a study done by NPD Group, Crest Report, 2011. In the year from March 2010 to March 2011, iced tea servings showed the biggest gains of any beverage product. In fact, it had 214 million more servings than the previous year. Clearly, iced tea is no longer just a warm weather pleasure.

About S&D Coffee & Tea

Headquartered in Concord, N.C., and privately held since its founding in 1927, S&D has grown to become the nation's largest custom coffee roaster, the largest blender of iced tea for the foodservice industry and a leading diversified food and beverage company serving the foodservice industry. The company provides coffee, tea, juice, extracts, and emerging beverages to more than 80,000 customers throughout the country through its extensive national network of approved distributors and traditional route delivery network. Recognized for supplier excellence by many of the largest retailers and consumers of coffee and iced tea, S&D has recently added a state-of-the-art Food Innovations and Ingredients produc