PG Tips and Tetley continue to battle for the top spot in the tea category, with Tetley taking the honours in terms of promotional activity at the weekend, but PG Tips remaining narrowly ahead for the year.

However, following last week's launch of Elmwood's 'Make Mine A Builders' tea bags in Asda, the new player leapt into joint third place at the weekend with PG Tips - both accounting for 9% of activity.

Research conducted last weekend indicated a total of four tea brands on featured space promotion. Tetley recorded the most activity taking 59% of space across three retailers - Asda, Somerfield and Morrisons. Tetley's primary mechanic was extra-free with buy-one-get-one-free in Somerfield. It used gondola ends, ladder racks and bin/cage/crates.

The Yorkshire Tea brand was the second most promoted brand taking a 17% share of space with offers in Morrisons. X-for-y was used for all offers and gondola ends were the only extra space used for secondary displays by this brand.

The Elmwood tea was launched with a trial price offer and a donation from every pack goes to the Federation of Master Builders. Ladder racks were used as the display mechanism.

PG Tips was on offer in Asda, along with 'Make Mine A Builders Brew', and accounted for the remaining 9% of activity. PG Tips used the 'save' mechanic and gondola-end displays. Sainsbury's Red Label accounted for 6% of activity.

Activity for the year to date shows PG Tips still in the lead with a 39% overall share of space, Tetley in second with 36%, Yorkshire Tea has moved into third with 11% and Twinings and Thompson's Punjana have taken a 7% share each.

The top five brands for 2006 were PG Tips with 37%, Tetley with 33%, Typhoo with 19%, Yorkshire Tea with 8% and Twinings with 3%. From the 2006 top five chart, the only brand to not record activity in 2007 so far is Typhoo. The charts show the category activity in 2006 full year and 2007 year to date.

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