Bay Minette’s Cane Brew Sweet Tea Lands in 618 Walmart Stores in Its Biggest Retail Expansion Yet

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — Cane Brew sweet tea is headed to 618 Walmart stores. The Bay Minette company, built around a tea bag with pure cane sugar sealed inside, says its sweet and unsweetened teas are now on Walmart shelves in what is the largest retail expansion in its history.

The Walmart placement is the latest and biggest step for a Baldwin County business that started with a simple kitchen-table question: why does making a pitcher of homemade sweet tea have to involve boiling water, steeping, measuring sugar and waiting for the whole thing to cool down? Cane Brew’s answer was a bag that does most of that work in cool water.

The company framed the new Walmart agreement as a turning point. In its announcement, Cane Brew described the rollout as a major vote of confidence for an Alabama-founded company headquartered in the state, noting that its growth is bringing a Gulf Coast-developed product to consumers across the Southeast.

A Cane Brew Sweet Tea Idea Years in the Making

Cane Brew traces its roots to Bay Minette, the Baldwin County seat, where co-founder Adam Stewart spent years working out a process for putting pure cane sugar directly into a tea bag. Getting sugar and tea leaves to coexist in a bag that brews properly without hot water was the technical hurdle at the center of the business, and the company describes the finished product as the first tea bag with pure cane sugar built right into it.

The concept is designed to strip away the steps that make traditional sweet tea a chore. Instead of boiling a pot of water and stirring in a measured cup of sugar, customers drop the bag into cool water and let it brew. According to the company, one bag makes a half-gallon pitcher, and two bags make a full gallon.

Stewart has said the idea grew out of frustration with how much effort a Southern staple can take at home.

Stewart said they knew there had to be a better way to make sweet tea at home, calling sweet tea the table wine of the South and questioning why not make it easier and more fun.

That line, which describes sweet tea as the table wine of the South, captures the cultural niche the company is chasing. Across Alabama and the rest of the Southeast, a pitcher of iced sweet tea is a fixture at family dinners, church suppers, cookouts and restaurant tables. Cane Brew’s pitch is that it can keep the familiar flavor while cutting out the hassle.

What 618 Walmart Stores Means for an Alabama Brand

Landing on Walmart shelves is one of the most sought-after milestones for any consumer packaged goods company. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is the largest in the country, and placement in hundreds of its stores puts a product in front of an enormous number of everyday grocery shoppers who might never have encountered it otherwise.

For Cane Brew, the 618-store rollout means a product conceived in a small Baldwin County city will now sit beside some of the largest beverage brands in the nation. The company said the expansion is expected to dramatically increase the brand’s visibility and distribution and create opportunities for future growth.

The company described the move as part of its evolution from an Alabama startup into a growing regional consumer brand. It also noted that the deal brings another Alabama-created product to consumers throughout the region, showcasing the kind of entrepreneurial activity that grows when companies start, build and stay in the state.

Cane Brew did not specify in its announcement which states or individual store locations are part of the 618-store rollout. Shoppers looking for the product at a particular Walmart can check the retailer’s website or app, or ask at their local store.

Where Cane Brew Was Already Sold

Walmart is not Cane Brew’s first major retail partner. Before the new agreement, the company had already built a sizable footprint across a number of regional grocery chains and farm-and-home retailers. According to Cane Brew, its products are sold at:

• Piggly Wiggly, which carries the tea in 221 Alabama stores
• Rural King
• Schnucks
• Rouses Markets
• Lowes Foods
• Greer’s Markets

The company also sells directly to customers online. Several of those retailers have deep roots along the Gulf Coast and in the broader South. Rouses Markets is a familiar name to many shoppers in Mobile and Baldwin counties, while Greer’s is a longtime Mobile-based grocery chain. Piggly Wiggly’s 221 Alabama stores alone give Cane Brew a strong in-state presence, and the Walmart deal significantly widens the brand’s reach beyond those existing channels.

Inside the Cane Brew Product Line

The company’s teas are made with three primary components: pure cane sugar, Pekoe cut black tea and a tea extract chosen specifically because it works in cool water. Cane Brew says the products contain no artificial ingredients, colors, sweeteners or preservatives, and that they are made in the United States.

The lineup has grown well beyond the original sweet tea and unsweetened tea. The company now offers several flavored and specialty varieties, including:

• Peach
• Strawberry
• Watermelon
• Triple Berry
• Decaf
• A Lemongrass Lemonade line

The Walmart rollout specifically involves the company’s sweet tea and unsweetened tea products, according to the announcement.

Cane Brew also points to strong customer feedback as evidence that the concept has caught on. The brand says it has collected more than 3,400 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.8 stars.

How Cool-Brew Sweet Tea Works

Traditional Southern sweet tea is usually made by steeping black tea in hot or boiling water, then dissolving a generous amount of sugar into the hot concentrate before diluting it with cold water and chilling it. Adding sugar while the tea is hot is the classic method because granulated sugar dissolves far more easily at high temperatures than in cold water.

Cane Brew’s approach is meant to remove that step. By building the cane sugar into the bag and using tea and extract selected for cool brewing, the company says customers can make a pitcher without heating water or measuring anything. For busy households, that can mean a fresh pitcher with little more effort than filling a container from the tap and dropping in a bag or two.

The unsweetened version offers the same cool-brew convenience for people who prefer their tea without sugar or who like to sweeten it themselves.

A Baldwin County Success Story

Bay Minette, a city of roughly 8,000 people in north Baldwin County, is better known as the home of the county courthouse than as a launching pad for consumer brands. Cane Brew’s growth from a local idea to a product found in hundreds of stores in one of the nation’s largest retail chains gives the city a homegrown business success story.

The company said its story illustrates what can happen when a locally developed idea finds a market well beyond the place where it started. With the Walmart rollout, a product dreamed up in Baldwin County now competes for space in the beverage aisle with nationally known brands.

For other small Alabama food and beverage makers, Cane Brew’s path — building a following with regional grocers and online sales before landing a national retail partner — offers an example of how a focused product with a clear Southern identity can scale up.

Cane Brew remains headquartered in Bay Minette. Shoppers interested in trying the product can look for it at participating Walmart stores, at the company’s existing retail partners or through its online store.