Tetley facts for kids
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Food |
| Founded | 1837 |
| Founder | Joseph and Edward Tetley |
| Headquarters |
Greenford, London
,
England
|
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
| Products | Tea |
| Parent | Tata Consumer Products |
Tetley is a well-known English company that makes drinks, especially tea. It was started in 1837 in Yorkshire, England. Today, Tetley is the largest tea company in the United Kingdom and Canada. It is also the second largest in the United States.
Since the year 2000, Tetley has been owned by Tata Consumer Products. This makes Tetley the second-largest tea maker in the world, right after Unilever.
History of Tetley Tea
The story of Tetley began in 1822 with two brothers, Joseph and Edward Tetley. They started by selling salt from a pack horse in Huddersfield, England. They soon began selling tea, and it was very popular!
In 1837, they officially started their tea business called "Joseph Tetley & Co." Later, in 1856, they moved their business to London. There, they formed "Joseph Tetley & Company, Wholesale Tea Dealers."
In 1952, a singer named Petula Clark had a song called "Anytime Is Tea Time Now." This song was used to advertise Tetley tea on Radio Luxembourg. This was an early example of "cross-promotion," where one product helps sell another.
Tetley was also the first company to sell tea in tea-bags in the United Kingdom. This happened in 1953. Later, in 1989, Tetley introduced the round tea bag. They did this after many tests showed that people in Britain liked them best.
In 1973, a company called J. Lyons and Co. bought Tetley. They formed a new company called Lyons-Tetley. Over time, Lyons became part of bigger companies like Allied Lyons and then Allied Domecq.
In July 1995, a group of investors bought the Tetley tea business from Allied Domecq. This created The Tetley Group. Then, in February 2000, a large Indian company called Tata Group bought The Tetley Group for about £271 million.
This was one of the biggest purchases by an Indian company outside of India at that time. The Tata Group is a huge business group in India. It owns more than a hundred companies, including Tata Consumer Products. Buying Tetley helped Tata become a major global tea company.
As India made it cheaper to import tea, Tata Consumer Products saw its share of the Indian market go down. But they made up for it by growing in Europe and North America.
In 2014, some reports mentioned concerns about workers who harvest tea for some plantations in India. Tetley's parent company, Tata Consumer Products, quickly responded. They said they hired legal experts to check on the working conditions. They also asked an independent group called Solidaridad to look into the living and working conditions at the plantations.
The company stated that tea from these specific plantations was not used in Tetley tea sold internationally. They said only a small amount was used for Tetley in India. In October 2014, UNICEF announced they were working with tea companies and the Ethical Tea Partnership. Their goal is to help children in Indian tea communities. This program is supported by Tata Consumer Products and other groups.
How Tetley Works
Tetley makes and sells its tea in forty different countries. They sell over sixty different kinds of branded tea bags. When Tetley first started, they only distributed tea. They bought their tea leaves from auctions.
This meant their final tea blend often had 40 different types of tea. These teas came from over 10,000 tea farms around the world. Tetley became very popular because of its good quality and special packaging. By 1990, Tetley was making 20 billion tea bags each year. This made them the second-largest tea company worldwide, after Lipton.
After Tata Tea bought Tetley, the way they got their tea leaves changed. Most of Tetley's tea leaves now come from Tata's own tea farms in India and Sri Lanka.
See also
