Keithpp's Blog

smoke and mirrors

I like brands which are transparent. I was cross and mortified when Innocent sold a big stake to Coca-Cola, but there felt like there was no hiding it. Bit the same with Pret and McDonalds.

So I was a bit miffed when someone told me that Teapigs belonged to Tetley. I’d never looked into it, I have to admit, but just felt like it was always portrayed as some young, plucky upstart in the world of tea. I had no reason to doubt the person, and posted a tweet:

Which led to some interesting similar responses from other people, but also one from someone who I would respect, who told me that they aren’t and that she had asked them the direct question. And Teapigs seemed very keen to tell us that I hadn’t got the right end of the stick:

Except I rather began to wondering. There usually really is no smoke without fire, and no one involved had anything to prove by getting this wrong.

So, here’s my view, having asked some direct questions of Teapigs, and not really getting a full answer.

• Teapigs are not owned by Tetley, but only on the basis that the owners are Tata Global Beverages GB Limited. Who also happen to own Tetley.
• According to the accounts lodged at Companies House for 2010, and also accessed through the Tata website, Tata own 100% of the shares, meaning none of the Teapigs’ directors had any shares in the business at that point in time.
• Tata had put in over £1 million over a number of years.

Louise at Teapigs did respond to my initial email, but I would say not entirely directly to the questions I posed. I am sure that to the now 9 people involved it does feel like a small business, and that they work hard for the results they have achieved. But to me, and I think to many who responded to my original tweet, the ownership and funding put it a long way from our personal definitions of a small start up.

Louise also didn’t, reasonably, want to share what stake her and her fellow director had in the business, but as they own no shares, it’s hard to work out how that could be financial, based on that last set of accounts. She also said in her email that they’d both given up jobs in a corporate environment, and that if Teapigs had failed then they’d have been out of a job, which felt like a risk to them. I think many of us can relate to that, but many who are running small businesses have a lot more to risk than just their jobs. Like life savings, any equity in properties, even the houses (and homes) themselves.

To me, you can set a business up any way you like. You can be owned by who you like. Just don’t expect us not to be disappointed when you turn out to be something different to how you portray yourselves. Maybe you’ve even convinced yourself that you are a small business. But to most of us, when you’re owned by a huge multi-national, we may well have a different view.

You may well have set out to “get great tea into the hands of British tea drinkers”, you may well have a great tasting product. But if we want to support a small, independent business, then you’ll forgive us for moving our tea buying somewhere else.

For the record, I checked. And I’ll be buying my tea from Bellevue Tea and Lahloo Tea. Both independent, both doing great tasting tea in my view. And both risking more than just losing their jobs. At the end of the day, we all make our own choices, I would just say make them for the right reasons, on the right basis.

Picture by Joe Shlabotnik on Flickr, vidoes by teapig, and original article by Helen.

With global corporations becoming increasingly wary of consumer boycotts, they are doing everything they can to hide who they are.

Teapigs was spun off from Tetley, both are owned by Tata Tea. In India, Tata are on a par with Unilever, and increasingly are competing with Pepsi and Coca-Cola for a share of the soft drinks market.

Harris + Hoole is an agressive chain, 49% owned by Tesco, but they masquerade as an indie coffee shop embedded in the local community.

• Tesco effect: How big firms quietly own little brands

Speaking of ‘ethical’ businesses, the ‘ecologically sound’ cleaning products manufacturer Ecover was until recently owned and chaired by Jørgen Philip-Sørensen, who was CEO and chair of G4S until his retirement in 2006. In its ‘farewell tribute’ to the man, who died in January 2010, Ecover boasted that “it is under his ownership that the company has risen to its highest successes … All of us who had the privilege of working with him were touched by his life in different ways.” Does this include his role in abusing migrants, Palestinians, prisoners and the many others who have fallen victim to G4S’s various ethical businesses, one wonders?

Loseley ice cream, which is not quality ice cream, does not come from Loseley House near Guildford, and has not done so far years, and yet it still shows a picture of the house, leading not only those eating it, but also those selling it, to believe it comes from Loseley House. It comes from a factory somewhere near the Welsh borders (or did), and what a genuine independent ice cream producer of quality foods told me it is made by Häagen-Dazs, who in turn are owned by General Mills, and Nestlé make under licence.

• Teapigs —> Tata Tea
• Harris + Hoole —> Tesco
• Innocent Smoothies —> Coca-Cola
• Pret a Manger —> McDonald’s (McD’s share subsequently sold to a private equity investor)
• Ben and Jerry’s ice cream —> Unilever
• Green and Black’s chocolate —> Cadbury —> Kraft
• Copella apple juice —> Tropicana —> Pepsi

But why tea bags, when you can buy quality loose leaf tea?

And why buy teapigs when there are genuine independent quality tea suppliers: Bellevue Tea, Lahloo Tea, Pukka Teas, tea’s me.

• Word of mouth: Kate Gover, the tea hunter

If you wish to try quality tea, try Pimento Tea Rooms near the top of Steep Hill in Lincoln.

Tags: Tata Tea, tea, teapigs

This entry was posted on September 8, 2013 at 7:00 pm and is filed under culture, economics, NotoCosta, social behaviour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.