AriZona head honcho spills the tea on his $4 billion beverage business
To celebrate his birthday each year, Don Vultaggio wears his pajamas to work and spends the day flipping pancakes and omelettes on a portable stovetop for his employees.
The sight is unusual — but then again, so is Vultaggio's approach to business.
7 Don Vultaggio, founder of the AriZona Beverage Company, says that remaining private has enabled a degree of nimbleness and flexibility.
Newsday via Getty Images
Advertisement
In 1990, he co-founded AriZona Beverage Company. It's now America's top-selling iced tea company, with upwards of $4 billion in annual sales.
Through it all, the company has remained privately owned and kept the price for its iconic tall-boys the same — just 99 cents.
Vultaggio's credits his business's success, in part, to creating a unique corporate culture and retaining employees.
Advertisement
At AriZona's headquarters in Woodbury, NY, staff not only gather for Vultaggio's annual birthday pajama party, but there are also annual celebrations for Halloween and Cinco de May — the iced tea launched May 5 — and an Italian dinner featuring vegetables and herbs grown on the rooftop by Vultaggio's wife. Families are encouraged to attend.
'The work I do affects the livelihood of everyone that works [here],' Vultaggio said. 'I take that very personally.'
Here, he spills the tea on other strategies that have been crucial to AriZona's success.
7 AriZona's iconic 22-oz tallboy has been priced at 99 cents ever since the cans hit shelves in 1992. Vultaggio has been able to keep the price consistent by slashing nearly every line-item — that doesn't have to do with the product's taste — in the budget.
AriZona Beverage Company
Independence at all costs
Advertisement
AriZona is dwarfed by competitors such as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, but those giants' public ownership comes with strings attached: regulatory hurdles, shareholder pressures, compliance costs and layers of bureaucracy.
When something isn't working, executives can spend months haggling with their board.
Being family-owned and privately-run allows AriZona to be nimble and agile.
7 AriZona is a family-run, privately held business. Don (bottom left) founded the company in 1990. His wife, Ilene (bottom right) is an artist and designed the original cherry blossom label. Their sons, Wesley (top left) and Spencer (top right), serve as AriZona's chief creative officer and chief marketing officer, respectively.
AriZona Beverage Company
Advertisement
If there's a problem, Vultaggio said, 'We change it at lunch.'
In an industry where product development typically takes years, Vultaggio and co. are able to roll out between 12 and 16 new drinks or flavors per year.
This month, two of the brand's most unconventional offerings are hitting shelves: a 100-calorie vodka-infused iced tea and a one-gallon boxed cold brew coffee. Vultaggio said they each took about three months to go from conception to store shelves.
7 In April, AriZona is launching a new cold brew coffee product. The drink gives the brand a foothold in the booming cold brew market — forecasted to grow to $16.22 billion by 2032.
AriZona Beverage Company
The vodka drink — an upgrade over a previous malt-based product and AriZona's first premium boozy beverage — has been successful in Canada. It aims to be AriZona's answer to High Noon and other health-conscious hard drinks, an increasingly lucrative market.
Similarly, the coffee beverage will give AriZona a foothold into a booming cold brew market, which was valued at $3.16 billion in 2024 and expected to grow to $16.22 billion by 2032.
Having spent years perfecting a cold brewing process for teas, and with all the requisite infrastructure already in place, the move was a natural one for AriZona.
'Brewing is brewing,' Vultaggio said.
Advertisement
7 In a typical year, AriZona will produce 12 to 16 new beverages — many of which are one-off collaborations with brands ranging from Marvel to 7-Eleven.
AriZona Beverage Company
Let the brand speak for itself
AriZona has never ran a print or broadcast ad, instead letting its beverages do the talking.
'We make [them] taste good and price [them] fair,' Vultaggio said of his simplistic approach. 'Take care of customers and they take care of you.'
7 AriZona doesn't advertise, but through initiatives like a 99-cent pop-up store in NYC — which featured T-shirts, lapel pins, caps, totes, drink bottles, skate decks and more available for purchase — the brand has developed a cult-like following.
AriZona Beverage Company
Advertisement
While competitors blow millions on Super Bowl ads (and cut corners elsewhere to pay for them), AriZona leans on merch drops, organic buzz and partnerships with companies such as Adidas, Marvel and 7-Eleven — all eager to tap into the company's cultural cachet and zealous fanbase.
It's taking that model a step further by launching 'Club Zona' on May 5, a $99-a-year subscription program through which super-fans will get early access to limited-edition flavors and exclusive product drops.
It's marketing by way of community: less about reach, more about resonance.
7 Vultaggio hands out free swag to fans waiting in line at an NYC pop-up event. AriZona will be hosting another similar event in collaboration with luxury eyewear designer Thierry Lasry in NYC May 1 to 3 at 216 Lafayette Street.
AriZona Beverage Company
Advertisement
Keep prices consistent
While inflation and other outside factors have forced competitors to jack up prices, Vultaggio's savvy has allowed him to tinker with line items and keep AriZona's iced tea price at a consistent $0.99.
Growing up in Flatbush as the son of an A&P supermarket manager, he worked nearly every rung of the grocery and distribution ladders, even building his own beer delivery service.
This story is part of NYNext, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC's power players (and those who aspire to be).
Advertisement
By the time he launched AriZona, when he was in his 40s, he knew how every part of the supply chain worked and how to fine-tune operations and keep his — and customers' — costs low.
Over the years at AriZona, aluminum has been removed from cans, rail has replaced trucking where possible (and the remaining trucks now drive at night to for better fuel efficiency) and equipment is increasingly built in-house to abate vendor markups.
'If you're a manufacturer who thinks it's easy to just pass price along to a consumer,' Vultaggio said, 'you're kidding yourself.'
Send NYNext a tip: nynextlydia@nypost.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Family business to close for weekend as Parklife festivalgoers come to town
A family business will be closed for the weekend as thousands of visitors head to Prestwich for Parklife music festival this weekend. Heaton Park Garden Centre, which also hosts the Hidden Gem café inside, announced that the centre and coffee shop will be closed on June 13, 14 and 15, with "normal service" set to resume on Monday, June 16. The business apologised for any inconvenience and thanked customers for their 'ongoing support'. As Greater Manchester's biggest festival brings thousands of visitors to town on Saturday, June 14 and Sunday, June 15, several roads around Prestwich will be closed, along with temporary parking restrictions in place. Get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox by signing up to the Bury Times morning newsletter as well as our breaking news alerts. Welsh indie band Catfish and The Bottlemen are set to headline a show at Heaton Park on Friday, June 13. It is not the only business impacted by the festival, with an Italian eatery across the road from the park saying this week that it has been 'left with no option' but to close their doors temporarily while crowds pass through. Prestwich restaurant L'Aquila told customers that it would 'not be sustainable' for them to stay open following 'a significant number of cancellations' due to Parklife road closure and 'dramatically reduced footfall'. READ NEXT: Council denies wrongdoing around building sale after claims from artist READ NEXT: Community centre to stop providing children's services after more than 20 years A statement from the garden centre said: 'Unfortunately both the garden centre and the coffee shop will be closed June 13, 14 and 15. 'Normal service will resume on Monday, June 16. 'Sorry for any inconvenience, and as always we thank you for your continued support.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
House Republicans draft competing budget as Senate nears deal with Hobbs
Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror Arizona lawmakers are at odds again, but this time it's the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate who can't agree on how to forge the state budget. Creating the state budget — deciding how much to allocate to departments, projects and initiatives or whether to fund them at all — is the most important job that legislators do each year, and the only thing they are constitutionally required to complete. Before the group of bills that will become the state budget becomes law, it must be approved by a majority in both the Arizona Senate and House — which are both controlled by Republicans — and garner a signature from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. In recent history, budget negotiations in Arizona have occurred behind closed doors among the governor and legislative leaders in the House and Senate. But this year is different, with Hobbs and Republican leaders in the Senate nearing a deal after weeks of negotiations. GOP leaders in the House, who haven't been involved in those talks, have responded by drafting their own budget, which was introduced late Wednesday afternoon. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'This is a sound, disciplined budget that delivers safe communities, strong families, and a government that lives within its means,' House Speaker Steve Montenegro said in a Wednesday evening statement. 'We're raising pay for our state law enforcement officers, reducing tuition at public universities, fully funding school choice, fixing critical infrastructure and roads, and protecting taxpayers. Our budget reins in government and puts it back to work for the people it serves.' But the spending package, which is chock-full of proposals that are unlikely to pass muster with Hobbs, will never become law. Instead, it is better viewed as a way for House Republicans to lay down a marker in order to force Hobbs and the Senate to move closer to the House's proposal. Republican political consultant Barrett Marson said House GOP leaders are hoping to demonstrate that the chamber can pass a spending plan in order to get leverage in the negotiations. 'Sometimes there's just gotta be movement to unstick a sticky situation,' he said. 'The House has an equal voice. And unlike previous years when one or both chambers had a go-it-alone ethos, the House isn't looking to be draconian or anything. They want something more responsible.' Marson said a major point of contention between the House and Senate is what to do with the budget surplus. While the Senate and Hobbs have settled on copying the novel process from 2023, in which each lawmaker was given a pot of money from the surplus that was used to fund whatever initiatives they wanted, the House wants to negotiate all of those details and not surrender control of that money to individual legislators. During a House Rules Committee meeting earlier Wednesday afternoon, House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, of Laveen, said he was disappointed in the way the budgeting process was happening this year. 'We should not be moving forward with a House Republican-only budget that is destined to fail,' he said. 'This will not get signed by the governor. I don't even think it's going to pass out of the Senate.' De Los Santos even questioned whether the proposal would get enough votes to pass through the House, where Republicans hold 33 of the chamber's 60 seats. 'What we do know is that this is not a negotiated, bipartisan deal in good faith,' he said. 'House Democrats are at the table negotiating in a bipartisan way with the executive, with our (Senate) counterparts across the courtyard. That is the way to get things done in shared government.' But Republican Rep. Neal Carter, of San Tan Valley, replied that the work of governing should be done transparently, instead of in private — and that it should allow for input from the public. 'As a Republican, I stand for full transparency and not for back-room deals or negotiated budgets with parties that are somehow outside of this public process,' Carter said. The House Republican budget, introduced by House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Livingston, proposes significant changes in how federal money allocated to the state, but not restricted to specific uses, is controlled. The billions in unrestricted federal funds, currently controlled by the governor, would shift to legislative control and could only be spent on essential government services. The House GOP's budget proposal would also place new restrictions and monitoring requirements on entitlement programs, like the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System — the state's Medicaid program — and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps. Both programs would be monitored on at least a quarterly basis for participants who don't qualify, to be kicked off. And any participants who win $3,000 or more through gambling or playing the state lottery and don't report those winnings would become ineligible. It would also give the Arizona Department of Economic Security the authority to screen recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for illegal drug use and would ban anyone who tests positive for drugs not prescribed to them from the cash assistance program for a year. House Republicans also intend to increase the percentage of money spent in K-12 classrooms, as opposed to on administration; to decrease tuition for students attending the state's three public universities; and to ban those universities from using public or private money to give scholarships to students without legal immigration status. Hobbs introduced her budget proposal, which includes a much different list of priorities, back in January. Shortly after that, Livingston and Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix, panned her proposal for leaving out projected cost increases for programs like AHCCCS. Hobbs spokesman Christian Slater told the Arizona Mirror on Wednesday that Livingston and Gress were to blame for the House's lack of collaboration on the budget. 'This is DDD all over again,' Slater said via email, referring to a fight earlier this year over funding for the Department of Developmental Disabilities. 'It's another circus led by the Speaker, David Livingston, and Matt Gress where they have refused to participate with any caucuses, including their Republican counterparts in the Senate, in a meaningful manner and are once again just trying to score some political points even though they know their plan is going absolutely nowhere.' Livingston and Gress, a former budget director for Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, were both key players in the fight over an extra $122 million in emergency funding for DDD that put vital services for the developmentally disabled in jeopardy. 'Rather than being productive, the House Republican leadership continues to show they are in over their head and unserious about governing,' Slater said. The House Appropriations Committee is set to discuss the proposal Thursday morning. The Senate Republicans have not introduced their budget proposal. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Local barber brings big city feel to small town studio
BOARDMAN, Ohio (WKBN) – A new barbershop in Boardman is looking to add some local barbers to the team. Kiernan Kiske opened the doors to Stylogarten Barber Studio March 1. Growing up in Poland, Kiernan Kiske wanted to be a tattoo artist, but he could never find a place to learn. Eventually, he got tired of his desk job and took a leap, applying to barber school. 'At that time, the only one around was in Niles — Raphael's, and so that was whenever I quit my job the day that I signed up. I never really thought about cutting hair, but I was like, let's give it a shot,' Kiske said. From that point on, Kiske fell in love with cutting hair. Starting in 2020, he spent five years in a space with other artists until this March, when he opened his own studio — Stylogarten on Market Street. 'I wanted to create my own space. I'd collect a lot of art, Italian glass, very much in arts and culture. I thought that would be my first step into trying to curate a spot that doesn't necessarily look like a barbershop, a traditional barbershop,' Kiske said. Kiske says he loves the freedom of self-employment, and he was excited to bring his own style to the new studio. 'I had this spot open up, and it kind of just seemed to be the perfect timing. I was ready to expand, and my clientele was growing a lot, so I was like, maybe I need a bigger space. Maybe I could start bringing on some other guys who see the same vision as me,' Kiske said. Stylogarten has five open spots that Kiske is looking to fill with local barbers over the next two years. Though the walls of his studio are lined with a wide variety of paintings and decor, he's keeping those five booths empty so any new barbers can bring their own touch to the studio. 'I am trying to make it way more personalized for barbers where they could really make their own hours as long as they're staying consistent. I give them their booth. If they want to add lighting, add lighting. If they want to put up art, put up art. It's yours,' Kiske said. Kiske says he's not only looking for seasoned barbers, but he's willing to use his eight years of experience as a mentor. 'I have five spots open. I would love to have some cool barbers here that kind of see the vision that I'm going for, kind of giving a big city feel to the small town,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
