SANG Vietnamese Coffee 2023 Year in Review
CHÚC MỪNG NĂM MỚI!
Or, Happy New Year if you don’t know Vietnamese – don’t worry, we won’t judge but our Más certainly will…
2023 was our first official year of retail, and looking back we feel so nostalgic, happy, and proud, so we thought we’d share everything we got up to last year, as we enter 2024 - the Year of the Dragon! 🐉
The Beginning of SANG
As you already know, (or at least you should know by now) SANG is a ready-to-drink iced coffee brand shaking up the CPG industry, one delicious coffee at a time. Founded by first-gen Vietnamese American immigrant Lan Pham, SANG is a celebration of Vietnamese culture, and our mission is to share Viet flavors & culinary traditions to a wider audience.
Lan's family left a war-torn Vietnam and came to America by boat when she was only an infant. Growing up, they moved around a lot before finally settling in California where Lan was fully immersed in Orange County’s Little Saigon culture – and this is where the inspiration for SANG originally came from.
A Bright Start
We launched in 2022 with a lineup of three delish (we’re obvs not being biased. Like at all.) iced coffees: Traditional, Traditional with Oatmilk, and Straight Black with Vanilla.
Each coffee highlights the strong and bold flavor of Vietnamese coffee, but the fan favorites were definitely the two ready to drink cà phê sữa đás as there was nothing like it in the RTD coffee space, and a dairy-free cà phê sữa đá was unheard of.
In January 2023 we launched our two Saigon Cinnamon Lattes (in dairy and non-dairy) accompanied by our Strong Yet Sweet campaign, and the response was overwhelming. The two RTD lattes quickly became our most popular SKUs and now, they’re as popular as our Traditional flavor, perhaps even more popular, but we’re scared to tell our Más…
A Year of Growth
Along with growing our collection of canned iced coffees, we also expanded our retail presence, it’s not world domination just yet, but give us a year or two.
At the start of 2023, we were only available in a handful of stores in New York City, but now we’re in over 3,000 stores and available nationwide!! Some of the major retailers carrying SANG include Fresh Market, Stop & Shop, Meijer, and Fred Meyer.
Oh, we also have a bunch of exciting new store announcements lined up for this year, so keep an eye out for that! 🤫
Another major win – all FIVE of our iced coffees were GMO-certified! This is a pretty big deal as we’re the only RTD Vietnamese coffee brand to receive this certification. It's a major win because it’s a guarantee that our customers only get the best ingredients when they drink our coffees.
Right On Target 🎯
In 2023 we also secured our largest retail deal to date with none other than Target! You can now snag SANG in 1,400 Target stores across the country!! They’re currently carrying three flavors, but we’re hoping to have the whole lineup in all 2,000 stores super soon.
On the heels of our Target drop, we also launched our second campaign: “Robussin” – A Celebration of the Robusta Coffee Bean. This campaign is very special to us as it not only highlighted Vietnamese culture and robusta coffee, but we also got to work with BLVCKĐEN productions, an incredible group of Vietnamese creatives.
The experience was unforgettable, and we’re extremely proud that almost the entire campaign (from the talent and production team to hair & makeup and the camera crew) was of Vietnamese/Vietnamese-American origin!
Finally, we closed the year with one last retail announcement – SANG is now available on Amazon! This means you can now be sippin’ on SANG Vietnamese coffee wherever you are in the States in just two days if you have an Amazon Prime account and tbh who doesn’t have one anymore?
Bigger, Brighter & Bolder
We ended this year on a high note: at the “BevNET Best of 2023 Awards”, SANG snagged the Best New Product of 2023! This is such an honor, not only to be handpicked from other great brands, but also to be recognized by an institution like BevNET.
This past year was phenomenal, and we have to thank you, our customers, for all your love and support. It’s because of you, that we were able to prove to people that there actually is a demand for Asian flavors, and with your help we’re able to improve representation in the CPG industry with one can of iced coffee at a time – so cảm ơn (thank you).
We can’t wait to channel our fiery energy as we enter 2024 - the Year of the Dragon- with bigger, brighter & bolder things ahead. 🐉