Archive for the ‘Honest Tea’ Category

Honest Tea Publishes Annual Mission Report

Posted by admin on October 27th, 2011 | No Comments »

BETHESDA, Md. – (October 26, 2011) – Honest Tea, the nation’s top-selling organic bottled tea company, today released Keeping It Honest, the second edition of Honest Tea’s annual Mission Report. Last year, Honest Tea committed to examining and reporting on the progress and challenges of advancing its mission. The new report takes dialogue with consumers to a new level of engagement through an online version available on Tumblr.

The 2011 Mission Report details the company’s progress on social and environmental initiatives related to its products, packaging, the planet, its people and partners. Achievements, such as the 1) conversion of all teas to Fair Trade Certified™ 2) first annual service day and 3) launch of Honest CocoaNova®, and challenges, such as packaging, are addressed in the report, providing consumers with a genuine, introspective look at how the company strives to scale a mission-driven business.

In addition to the digital report available at Honesttea.com/MissionReport, Honest Tea also launched an online version of Keeping It Honest on the company’s first Tumblr page, honesttea.tumblr.com. The Honest Tumblr page will be updated throughout the year as the company works to advance its mission. This innovative medium allows Honest Tea to maintain a regular dialogue with its readers and allows new readers to learn what Honest Tea is doing through posts on individual topics of interest. Honest Tea’s Facebook page will also host a new Keeping It Honest tab, during Honest’s Mission Month, where Honest fans can choose a personal mission each week, creating their own agenda for change.

Seth Goldman, president and TeaEO, commented, “Our commitment to our mission requires us to stretch our thinking and our business in new directions. Keeping It Honest is the closest thing we have to a roadmap for change. In this year’s report, we include results of a Cradle-to-Gate Life Cycle Analysis for two of our best-selling beverages, and identify new challenges in regard to sourcing and packaging.”

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Honest Tea announces Tree Planting Campaign

Posted by admin on April 6th, 2011 | No Comments »

Consumers can help plant trees this spring – in areas hit hard by wildfires and disasters – without ever getting their hands dirty. Honest Tea® today announced its “Bag to Tree” reforest campaign (www.honesttea.com/bagtotree) as it joins with the National Forest Foundation in a public/private partnership to plant 50,000 trees in five regions stretching from coast-to-coast.

Kicking off today, Bag to Tree starts in participating stores, where consumers purchasing four or more bottles of Honest Tea can receive a free reusable shopping bag with a unique code. Redeemed online (www.honesttea.com/bagtotree), the code allows consumers to select from the following regions for planting their tree: the West and Rocky Mountains, which have been affected by wildfires; the Midwest, which requires prairie restoration; the Southeast, which requires reforestation; and the Northeast, which requires hydrology (water) renewal.

After redeeming the code and selecting a region for their tree on the website, consumers have access to more information concerning local tree planting initiatives, April 16th Earth Day activities and other ways to support reforestation in targeted areas. The Bag to Tree campaign ends April 30, 2011 or when the 50,000 tree target has been reached.

Honest Tea’s earliest labels featured a “Plant A Tree” icon, highlighting the importance of the natural environment to its mission, and the notion that the business was committed to doing more than just moving cases of liquid around. Thirteen years later, Honest Tea still believes that trees are important. In one growing season, a single leafy, mature tree will produce as much oxygen as 10 people inhale in a year. Just 100 trees are capable of removing two tons of carbon dioxide as well as 1,000 pounds of pollutants annually, including 400 pounds of ozone and 300 pounds of particulates. Trees naturally clean the soil by absorbing chemicals and they provide vital protection from storm-water runoff. In urban areas, tree shade can cool the air by as much as 12 degrees and during windy and cold periods, a windbreak of trees can reduce heating bills by as much as 30%.

“I’m delighted that we are able to build on our earliest commitment to the planet by planting 50,000 trees this year,” says Seth Goldman, co-founder and TeaEO of Honest Tea. “Bag to Tree allows us to support an important sustainability program by joining with the National Forest Foundation, and it allows us to help our consumers be actively involved in helping the environment.”

Honest Tea has organized volunteer events so the public may get involved to reforest or preserve natural parklands firsthand. Events in April around Earth Day will be held in Virginia, Northern California, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, followed by June events in Florida and Atlanta, Georgia. More details on those events can be found here: bagtotree.stage23w.bluhq.us/events/

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Stonyfield Farm Kicks-Off “Just Eat Organic!” Education Campaign

Posted by admin on April 4th, 2011 | No Comments »

LONDONDERRY, N.H., April 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Stonyfield Farm, (www.stonyfield.com), the world’s leading organic yogurt company, has launched a “Just Eat Organic!” year-long organic education campaign, with two efforts designed to get people talking about organic: “Just Eat Organic” (www.justeatorganic.com), a music video by Stonyfield President & CE-Yo Gary Hirshberg, and “The Organic Moment,” (www.yourorganicmoment.com), an online space for people to share personal stories about what organic means to them.

“These past few months ignited an important – and sometimes challenging – dialogue around organic. The recent USDA decision to allow the growing of genetically engineered alfalfa dealt a blow to organic, but it has also brought about an impassioned focus on the benefits of organic foods,” said Hirshberg.  ”Now, more than ever, is the time for organic consumers to choose the foods they eat and feed their families. It is also the time to share our reasons and stories with others, and to inspire others to do the same.”

Hirshberg’s “Just Eat Organic” rap video tells the story of America’s switch from family farms to modern agriculture, which let “Big Agriculture” profit while consumers got addicted to convenient foods that are bad for their health. As Hirshberg raps, “Cancer rates are steadily rising, in kids and moms and dads. A baby born in Birmingham, Boise, Bend or Boston, now has in her cord blood almost 300 toxins. The U.S. Cancer Panel Study makes me ill at ease ’cause 41 percent of us will get this disease. Cut out unnecessary chemicals is what they prescribe. So to avoid getting sick, just change the stuff you imbibe!”

“The Stonyfield Moms,” three employee volunteers, rap the upbeat chorus, “So if you love your body, love your children and you love your planet, there is hope for the future, so there’s no need to panic. The solution is a simple one.  It’s easy to understand it. To protect your family, body and earth… just eat organic!”  Consumers send in their own “Just Eat Organic!” shout-outs, and suggest additional lyrics for “Just Eat Organic.”

Stonyfield is collaborating with Honest Tea, which produced a similar music video called “Just Drink Organic,” on a contest in honor of Earth Month. Create a video for an opportunity to win $1,000 and a month’s supply of Stonyfield yogurt and Honest Tea.

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Coca-Cola Company completes Acquisition of Honest Tea

Posted by admin on March 4th, 2011 | No Comments »

Bethesda, MD – March 1, 2011 – Honest Tea® and The Coca-Cola Company announced today that The Coca-Cola Company has exercised its option to acquire the remaining portion of Honest Tea. The move completes a transaction which began three years ago when Coca-Cola, led by the Venturing and Emerging Brands (VEB) unit of Coca-Cola North America, purchased a minority stake in the company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Honest Tea, the leading organic bottled tea company, will continue to be based out of Bethesda, MD. In order to retain its entrepreneurial culture, it will operate as a stand-alone business under current TeaEO Seth Goldman, his management team, and current Honest Tea employees.

Goldman and VEB have developed a unique operating model that allows Honest Tea autonomy to continue to run its day-to-day operations while accessing the scale benefits of the Coca-Cola system in various areas, including manufacturing and distribution. As part of the VEB team, Honest Tea will also begin to sell current VEB brands to the natural channel. Under an innovative arrangement with The Coca-Cola Company, Goldman has chosen to reinvest most of his proceeds from the sale back into Honest Tea. Goldman’s co-founder, Barry Nalebuff and Gary Hirshberg, CE-YO of Stonyfield Farm, will continue to provide informal guidance to Honest Tea as part of the Advisory Council. “We started Honest Tea thirteen years ago with an ambitious mission to create a delicious, healthy beverage alternative produced with the health of our planet and our consumers in mind,” said Seth Goldman, co-founder, President and TeaEO of Honest Tea. “Over the past three years, it has been exciting to see the reach and impact of our mission expand as a result of our partnership with The Coca-Cola Company.”

Since receiving an investment from Coca-Cola, Honest Tea has made exciting progress in a variety of areas, including the expansion of Honest Tea distribution from approximately 15,000 outlets in 2008 to more than 75,000 today, the introduction of a ground-breaking Honest Tea plastic bottle that uses 22 percent less material, and doubling the number of offerings as well as the sales of organic, zero-calorie drinks. Additionally, Honest Tea has committed to transitioning its entire tea line of Honest Teas to Fair Trade Certified™ by the end of March 2011.

The consistently strong growth of Honest Tea, as well as its leadership in the natural foods channel, was among the many elements that attracted The Coca-Cola Company. “When we made the investment in Honest Tea, we did so because we saw that it had great potential to be a significant brand of the future. Three years after, the brand truly reflects where consumer demand is today and we are excited about being on the verge of still more growth,” said Deryck van Rensburg, President and General Manager, Venturing and Emerging Brands, Coca-Cola North America. “Beyond growth, having the unique vantage point of a minority investee and watching Honest Tea has helped our company in many other ways, from encouraging Coca-Cola to obtain organic certification at three of our facilities, to establishing a state of the art tea brewing and filtration system at a bottling plant.

Additionally, it enabled us to participate with Honest in a number of sustainability initiatives on recycling. All of these efforts reflect why VEB has chosen to invest in entrepreneurs like the team at Honest – they provide a source of innovative ideas and energy that enhance our own efforts.” Honest Tea was started in 1998 when Goldman and his co-founder, Barry Nalebuff, brewed samples of tea in Goldman’s Bethesda, MD home and brought them to Fresh Fields (now Whole Foods Market). Since then the brand has become the top-ranked tea brand in the natural foods channel and has expanded into mainstream grocery and convenience stores. “This is our chance to bring organic beverages to the mainstream,” said Goldman. “Consumers will discover that they can have it all – great taste, fewer calories, and organic. Honest.”

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Honest Tea to Partner with Coke?

Posted by admin on February 6th, 2011 | No Comments »

By Jeremiah McWilliams The Atlanta Journal-Constitutio February 4, 2011

A few weeks ago, Honest Tea got a voice mail from a concerned drinker of the organic tea.

“This is Ray,” the caller intoned. “The tea is good, but I need to know who owns the company. … If it’s Coca-Cola, I’m not buying it anymore.”

That could be one fewer customer for the Bethesda, Maryland-based company. Coca-Cola is widely expected to take over Honest Tea in the coming weeks. Federal regulators cleared one of the last hurdles to a deal last month. Coca-Cola, which bought a 40 percent stake in 2008, gets an option to buy the company outright this month.

Ray and other Honest Tea fans may soon have to decide: is the brand as cool when it’s owned by the world’s biggest beverage company?

“The best thing we can do is continue doing what we’ve been doing,” said Seth Goldman, the company’s co-founder. “There are going to be some people who will have a reaction — ‘if it’s Coca-Cola, if it’s connected to Coca-Cola, I’m done.’ That’s a shame.”

Goldman, who founded Honest Tea in his home 13 years ago, has watched sales grow from about 360,000 bottles per year in the early days to more than 100 million bottles and pouches last year. Honest Tea is sold across the country in Kroger, CVS and other outlets. Bolstered by the partnership with Coca-Cola and its network of bottlers, the brand has moved into Publix and several hundred Walgreens stores.

At the time of the deal with Coca-Cola, Honest Tea was distributed in about 15,000 outlets. The total now is closer to 65,000.

Goldman called Coca-Cola a “critical partner.” Although Coca-Cola has two board seats on the private company as a minority investor, the brand and the business are still managed out of Bethesda, he said.

Coca-Cola declined to comment for this story, but spokesman Scott Williamson said the company hopes to have more news to share at a later date.

Leaders of Honest Tea say even if a bigger deal with Coca-Cola comes to fruition, the brand will have obstacles to overcome.

“The fact that we’re still considered tiny by mainstream beverage standards highlights how much work we have yet to do,” Goldman and his business partner Barry Nalebuff wrote on their blog last month. “As we seek to grow from tiny to small by joining the Coca-Cola family, there are bound to be other challenges ahead.”

Goldman and Nalebuff said Honest Tea’s ideal consumers are people who consider the social and environmental impact of their food and drink. But he said some consumers judge a product or brand because of its association.

If ownership by Coca-Cola loses Honest Tea some street cred, it wouldn’t be the first time the brand has taken heat from some of its most committed fans. When it helped Ford Motor Co. promote the Escape Hybrid, some criticized it for teaming up with a company that sells big SUVs.

MillerCoors, the country’s No. 2 brewer, has faced the same question: does an upstart brand’s authenticity diminish when it is produced by a huge company? MillerCoors sells Blue Moon and Leinenkugel’s, a connection that may escape some beer lovers.

“I don’t think consumers really think about corporate entities,” Tom Long, president and chief commercial officer of MillerCoors, told the AJC last year. “They think about the brand voice and if it’s real. What they look for is true character and authenticity.”

Honest Tea has made its name with environmentalism, organic and low-calorie ingredients, “green” operations and causes such as fair-trade certification. Quirky marketing also plays a role.

Last year, the company set up pop-up booths in cities such as New York and Atlanta, offering a bottle of tea for $1. In a test of collective honesty, the stores were unmanned and relied on the honor system. Hidden cameras tracked the results. Atlanta turned out to be 89 percent honest, on par with New York and better than Chicago’s 78 percent. But we were less virtuous than Washington, D.C. and Boston, both at about 93 percent.

An expanded deal with Coca-Cola could help Honest Tea get into venues where it is not currently sold in large quantities, including restaurants, colleges and schools. The brand works with Coca-Cola’s Venturing and Emerging Brands unit, a small office through which the company manages its investments in small brands.

Coca-Cola could use an infusion of Honest Tea’s energy. The company has struggled to establish its tea business, despite the growth of its Gold Peak brand. Coca-Cola’s tea offerings, which also include Nestea and Fuze, are stuck in fourth place in the U.S., behind PepsiCo, Arizona and Snapple.

The tea business is only about 1/13th the size of the carbonated soft drinks business in the U.S. But consumers who believe tea makes them healthier have made it one of the fastest-growing categories in the North American beverage business. Tea sales rose 11 percent last year, and Honest Tea grew 46 percent, according to Beverage Digest. That data does not include Wal-Mart.

“Honest Tea is a small but strong brand,” said John Sicher, editor of the trade publication. “Assuming Coke buys it, the challenge will be combining growth with making sure it stays true to its heritage. The company has a better chance of doing that than some years ago.”

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