No more Multinationals: MNC IN MY TEA

Following the coffee post I had to do tea next!

I am currently drinking co-op own brand, fair-trade, decaffeinated tea. It is actually good and very strong for a decaff.

They often don’t tell you the makers of the tea you are drinking in a cafe. I can only think of Brodies1867 which we covered above and Suki¹ .

Suki tea was started on a stall in Belfast and is still based in Northern Ireland. Its infusions are the best I have ever tasted, especially the red berry; as you can actually see the dried red berries in it. It sells all sorts of loose teas and has its own design of teapots with a built in infuser and a metal lid. It recently started an experimental tea growing project at Portaferry, County Down. It doesn’t appear to be a multinational.

Another non multinational tea is Yorkshire Tea², which is owned by Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate which was discussed in the Coffee post.

There seems to be an ethical, wholesale tea blenders in Plymouth which I could get tea from called All about tea³.

The only other non multinational tea companies I can find, although there are bound to be others, are Ringtons⁴ and The Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company ⁵, which were also discussed in the Coffee post.

Twinings^6&7 has taken over both Jackson’s of Piccadilly and Nambarrie but is itself owned by Associated British Foods⁸ which own Primark, Mazola, Ovaltine, Rivita and Jordans and as discussed in the cheap shop post, because Primark is in Europe and the US, is therefore a multinational.

Tetley^9&10is an English company which has been wholly owned by Tata Global Beverages since 2000. Tata, whose name has been in the papers recently for closing its Steel works, is a huge Indian conglomerate. Tetley is the biggest seller of tea in the UK and Canada and the 2^nd biggest in the USA.

PG tips,¹¹ Brooke Bond Tea¹², Lipton’s and Scottish Blend^13&143 are all owned by Unilever! Boo Hiss, we don’t like Unilever. Fortunately I was never a drinker of PG Tips but I did like its chip adverts as a youngster and I have never really been a fan of the other teas either.

Previous to this experiment I drank Typhoo^15&16 decaff. Tyhpoo is now owned by the Apeejay Surrendra Group, who also own The Park Hotel Group in India. Obviously, they too are a multinational.

Whittards^17&18 has tea and coffee retail shops on many UK high streets but is actually owned by a private equity firm called EPIC¹⁹, which has offices in London, Hong Kong, India and Guernsey. By the more expansive definition of a MNC it qualifies and Whittards, by association, does too.

References

No more Multinationals

Friday 30 October 2015

MNC IN MY TEA

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