No more Multinationals: October 2015

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

I love a good decaffeinated cappuccino. They are not easy to find, as although most decent coffee shops have decaf, a few don’t. As part of my quest for the ultimate decaf I had gone to all the large coffee house chains and often had rather bitter coffee so I could hold my head up and truthfully say I didn’t go to Starbucks or Caffe Nero when they were denounced as tax avoiders. If you have to use one of the huge coffee house chains, say in an Airport where you have no choice, use a Costa Coffee¹, they are owned by the Whitbread Group² who actually pay tax!.

However this post is not about them. I am going to look at types of coffee, both those we drink in cafes and those we have in the house.

One of my favourite suppliers of coffee is illy.^3&4You usually get a really smooth coffee in an illy coffee shop. They also have Responsible Supply Chain Process Certification from DNV (Det Norske Veritas). Unfortunately they are a multinational so I will not be drinking illy coffee till after Christmas when I plan to check the environmental credentials of Multinationals and integrate the good ones back into my life. Illy will be going back in!

I also like Lavazza^5&6 coffee, they too are a multinational business. They have websites for 21 different areas. I scanned through their sustainability report though and it looks good.

I didn’t realise it but Nescafe⁷is part of the Nestle⁸family. Boo Hiss I say. Nestle is still taking water from a drought ridden Californian National Park on permit which went out of date in 1988.⁹ I seriously don’t want to be buying any of Nestle’s products.

Kenco started life as the Kenyan Coffee Company but over the years has been owned by many different firms and is currently owned by Mondelez International.¹⁰ Mondelez is the new global snacks business which has been split from Kraft Food Inc.¹¹ As well as Douwe Egberts¹² is also owns Tassimo and 7 foreign coffee brands as well as Cadbury’s and many others. It goes without saying that Kraft is a huge multinational and I will not be using any of their products, ever.

As you can see in the Wikipedia article¹³ below Kraft Foods Inc split into two. The new company Kraft Foods Group Inc is to concentrate on the US market and Mondelez on the rest of the world. Maxwell House¹⁴ is still owned by Kraft Foods Group Inc. which is shortly to merge with Heinz¹⁵ into the Kraft Heinz Company. Very confusing! I will miss Heinz tomato soup and ketchup.

Carte Noire¹⁶ is a brand in the Douwe Egberts¹² range and therefore owned by Mondelez (see above.) If it is as immoral as its sibling Kraft I will never be using Mondelez products either.

Rombouts¹⁷ is a Flemish company; hence a multinational but has a whole range of fair-trade coffee.

Melitta¹⁸ is a German company so it too is a multinational in the strict sense of the word. I have never actually seen it here but according to the web it is in the top ten coffees drunk in the UK.

An Edinburgh company which you wouldn’t believe are a multinational are Brodies1867.¹⁹ My cousin liked their coffee so much that I had to take one kilo of the stuff with me to Minorca when I visited. Brodies are part of the Massimo Zanetti²⁰ Group who also own the Segafredo coffee brand.

At the moment I am drinking coffee (literally) from Taylor’s of Harrogate,²¹ they are a Yorkshire family firm and have been producing tea and coffee since 1886.

I am also going to try the Edinburgh Tea and Coffee.²² Company’s products as they are actually based in Portobello and they are organic and fair trade.

Artisan Roast²³ is an Edinburgh coffee company that also have five cafes and no foreign affiliations.

Another family firm I could try to get coffee from is Rington’s.²⁴ They deliver your tea or coffee to your door and have done since 1907.

No more Multinationals

Friday 30 October 2015

MNC IN MY TEA

Sunday 18 October 2015

MNC IN MY COFFEE