The AriZona iced-tea 99-cent miracle

Headlines From The Times

L.A. Times Studios

News, Daily News, Society & Culture, The Times, California

4.1 • 544 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2022

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For 30 years, a big can of the wildly popular AriZona iced tea has cost 99 cents. How do they do it? We find out.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Arizona iced tea, you got to know it. You know, it's that tall can of iced tea with so much turquoise and pastel as a color scheme. It looks like a kid went to school on it. And that's not even the craziest thing about it. That would be the price tag of Arizona iced tea. Printed right on the can. 99 cents.
0:23.4	It cost that much when it came out in the 90s.
0:26.2	It cost that much when I went to college in the 2000s.
0:29.7	It cost that much when my producers were in high school last decade.
0:32.4	And it's still 99 cents even now.
0:35.7	Even as we're going through the worst price hikes in decades.
0:37.5	I like Arizona iced tea.
0:38.5	It's okay.
0:43.0	Did I buy this can to see if it would actually only cost me 99 cents?
0:44.0	Yes.
0:45.5	Yes, I did that.
0:48.3	People are always talking about, you know, the gas prices right now, right?
0:49.3	They're going crazy.
0:52.4	And people are like, hey, everything goes up.
0:53.4	Not everything.
0:54.9	Not everything. Not everything.
0:57.5	And the owner of Arizona iced tea,
1:02.4	he vows to keep that 99 cent price as long as he's alive.
1:08.4	I'm Gustavo Ariano.
1:11.9	You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times.
1:15.1	It's Wednesday, April 20, 2022.
1:26.3	Today, we, yep, I got to say this, spill the tea on how Arizona iced tea keeps its costs so low while everything else is feeling inflation.
	...

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