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Yorkshire Tea
Yorkshire Tea is a black tea blend produced by Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate while trading as Taylors of Harrogate. This
company was founded in 1886 in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England, before the purchase of Taylors by Bettys. The company is
now owned by the group (Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate) with two subsidiaries, Bettys and Taylors. Yorkshire Tea was originally sold by Taylors but after the buy out by Betty’s, the brand had the name Betty’s and Taylors on the back but soon
changed the name back to “Taylors of Harrogate”. Yorkshire Tea originally came from Taylors of Harrogate by two brothers
but is now sold under both names, the pair set up the tea and coffee importing business CE Taylor & Co before going on to
train at Ashbys Tea of London, where they went on to buy teas and coffees at auction. The company is one of the few remaining family tea and coffee merchants in the country.
By the early 1900s, rival Bettys tea rooms were also becoming a familiar sight across the county. Set up by Swiss pastry
chef Fritz Butzer, who later changed his name to Frederick Belmont after marrying a Harrogate girl, Bettys was said to have
had a friendly rivalry with Taylors. In 1962, Frederick’s nephew Victor Wild, the chairman of Bettys, bought out Taylor, creating the Bettys and Taylors group. Bettys remained the name over its tea rooms, Taylors the name of its tea and coffee business.
The success of Taylors was credited to Charles’ talent for blending teas - which he tailored to suit water types in different
regions - and the company still aims to emulate this legacy. Yorkshire Tea’s blend from tea leaves picked in India, Kenya and
Rwanda is checked at least eight times, and it claims that skilled buyers taste up to a thousand teas a day to ensure high
quality. In the 70s a new blend was created by Taylors’ experts, called Yorkshire Tea, taking inspiration from their surroundings. The blend was intended to create a brew that suited the region’s water, and the surroundings inspired Yorkshire Tea’s
image as well as taste.
The company employed renowned designer Michael Peters to create the look of Yorkshire Tea. He used images of traditional regional landscapes featuring cricketers, dales and dog walkers as the backdrop for the orange stripe and bold typeface
bearing the brand’s name. The look of the product has been updated over the years but not changed significantly. The Yorkshire landscape illustration used is still that created by artist Lizzie Sanders in 1984, refreshed with new scenes by the same
artist in 2002. Such is the influence of the brand’s location, the production lines at its Harrogate headquarters are named
after nearby rivers, the Wharfe, Nidd, Swale and Esk.
Yorkshire Tea has thrived in Britain, and its popularity and success was cemented in 2005 when it became the third bestselling tea brand, rivalling best-selling big corporation’s brands such as PG Tips and Tetley. Consumers get through an estimated 10m cups of Yorkshire Tea every day. Originally appearing as promotional items in the 70s, a range of tea-related
collectables has since been made available for fans of Yorkshire Tea, including teapots, tea caddies, mugs and model toys.
The company, which is still family owned, has also expanded outside the UK with success, offering a little taste of Yorkshire
to 30 countries around the world.
Advertising and popular culture
When Safeway was taken over by West Yorkshire-based Morrisons in 2004, commentators in the London press noted the
amount of shelf space in one former Safeway store that was suddenly given over to Yorkshire Tea.
The Yorkshire Tea brand is currently being extended to include a range of cakes, biscuits, and fruit loaves, sold as being
complementary to drinking tea. Yorkshire Tea Biscuits are a “T”-shaped shortbread for dunking. In 2009, the Prince of Wales
granted Yorkshire Tea a Royal Warrant.
The company sponsored ITV1’s 1960s-set drama Heartbeat for several years. In 2007, a new TV campaign was created using the line “Try It, You’ll See”. The voice on the commercials is Bill Nighy. The campaign was created by the agency LOVE,
who are based in Manchester, England.
Yorkshire tea leaf
All tea comes from one type of bush, called Camellia Sinensis, and its journey is quite something. The tea we’re interested
in is mainly grown in the best tea gardens of Assam, East Africa and Sri Lanka. Soil, climate, and rainfall all affect the quality. So does the way its picked. Yorkshire Gold, for example, uses only the best quality first two leaves and a bud picked from
each plant.
Once picked, tea leaves are ‘withered’ by spreading them out in troughs to remove moisture. They are then cut and rolled
then left to ‘ferment’ by being exposed to the air. As oxygen circulates around the leaves, they turn from green to brown.
The tea then turns black when fired in hot ovens, which stops oxidization by ‘sealing’ the leaves. It’s then sorted by size,
graded and packed, ready to be shipped all the way back to Yorkshire.
We buy teas from different origins in different seasons, each with different characteristics. So our experts taste all the teas
we buy before deciding exactly how much of each tea will go into our blends. We then gently mix up to twenty different
teas to create the perfect taste and colour of Yorkshire Tea. A special blending drum is used that turns only twelve times
as tea is delicate and leaves can bruise easily. We then whisk them off to be bagged and packed, then wrapped to seal the
freshness in.
A history of breakfast
Introduced into Britain in the seventeenth century, this watery elixir received its first royal endorsement from a foreign princess, Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II. She had grown up drinking tea in her native land and naturally brought a large casket of the stuff with her on her voyage to England in 1662, inspiring a fashion for it in the royal
court and subsequently among the upper classes.
Tea (both green and black) was initially a delicate, afternoon treat drunk from dainty porcelain bowls, and remained for
some time a rather elite substance until a combination of factors led to its gradual seepage throughout the class structure,
turning it into the class-boundary-busting drink it is today. How precisely tea came to be a breakfast staple is not entirely clear, but by the mid-eighteenth century its position on the breakfast table was well established. One theory has it that
Queen Anne, Charles’s successor, initiated the trend when she chose tea over ale as her customary breakfast drink, and her
subjects began to follow suit.
Prior to this time tea’s ascension had been somewhat hindered by a combination of high prices, heavy taxation and a resulting black market in adulterated tea, known as ‘smouch’. This could contain anything from used real tea dyed to look fresh,
the leaves of other plants, clay, molasses and most worryingly, sheep’s droppings. Fake green tea was easier to get away
with, and it may be for this reason that black tea became more popular, being more trustworthy. Black tea is also, of course,
more caffeinated, due to its higher oxidisation, which is surely another reason behind its popularity at breakfast-time.
Interestingly, the blend we know as English breakfast tea is in fact thought to have been the creation of a Scottish tea
master named Drysdale, who in 1892 saw the need for a stronger flavoured tea – what he called an ‘eye-opener’ – to cut
through the heaviness of the average breakfast. To meet this demand he developed and marketed a blend known as ‘breakfast tea’, which was tasted and admired by Queen Victoria during a stay at Balmoral. She subsequently brought a stash back
to London with her, where it was controversially renamed ‘English breakfast tea’. Yet again tea had a queen to thank for its
popularity, if not for the fragility of English–Scottish relations.
So spare a thought for the queens of England over your morning cuppa, without whom breakfast might have been a completely different story.
Partnerships
Yorkshire tea want the way they do business to be not only fair, but to have a
positive effect on the world. However, it’s not something they can can do all by
themself. That’s why we’ve formed strong partnerships with independent certification schemes such as the Rainforest Alliance. Doing this helps them to make
a very real difference on the ground quickly and effectively. 100% of the tea in
Yorkshire Tea comes from Rainforest Alliance Certified suppliers.
Fighting deforestation
Yorkshire Rainforest Project
They’re always trying to find new ways to reduce our carbon footprint still further, but is reducing negative impact enough?
There are other positive ways they can combat climate change. Twenty years
ago, there former chairman promised his children he’d plant a million trees
after they saw a TV programme about deforestation. In the end, their Trees
For Life campaign actually resulted in the planting of three million trees across
the world. But they didn’t stop there. They realized that to make a real difference we had to stop the destruction of the rainforest. They’ve recently removed
the tokens and are simply making a contribution on behalf of every customer
instead. As well as saving you the hassle of sending tokens in and paying for
postage, this means we can cut out loads of admin costs and divert all those
savings into our tree projects. That way they’re able to put more money than ever into planting and saving trees around the
world.
Responsible packaging
FSC Certification
Our Yorkshire Tea boxes carry the trademark of the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) – a not-forprofit organisation which promotes responsible forest management, harvesting wood in a way that assures the forest’s biodiversity, productivity and ecological processes are preserved. And we even have our
own FSC Chain of Custody Certification, to confirm that every step of our box production process involves
only wood from FSC certified forests and controlled sources, from the forest to the shelf. All our FSC documentation is linked below.
PG Tip Tea
In the 1930s Arthur Brooke of Brooke Bond launched PG Tips in the UK tea market under the name of Pre-Gest-Tee. The
name implied that the tea could be drunk prior to food being digested. Grocers abbreviated it to PG. After the Second
World War, labelling regulations ruled out describing tea as aiding digestion—a property previously attributed to tea—and by
1950/1 the PG name was officially adopted. The company added “Tips” referring to the fact that only the tips (the top two
leaves and bud) of the tea plants are used in the blend.
Products PG tips is available as loose tea, tea bags, and in vending formats. A “Special Blend” tea, which is the same as the
tea blended for the brand’s 75th anniversary, is available in tea bag form only. The tea used in PG tips is imported in bulk as
single estate teas from around the world and blended in precise proportions set by the tea tasters to make blend 777, which
can contain between 12 and 35 single estate teas at any one time (depending on season, etc.) at the Trafford Park factory
in Manchester.
PG Tags, tea bags with a string, were launched in 1985, and pyramid-shaped (tetrahedron) tea bags in 1996 (PG Tips Pyramid ® Bags is a registered trademark). The pyramid-shaped bag was specifically designed to help the tea leaves move
more freely, as loose tea moves in a teapot, and create a better infusion. The Brooke Bond name has now been dropped
from all packaging, and the product is now known as PG Tips. In Scotland, Unilever sells a specially developed blend of PG.
It is called Scottish Blend. In the Republic of Ireland, Unilever sells tea under the Lyons brand.
This was soon abbreviated to PG by grocers and van salesmen. The company adopted this as the official name and added ‘tips’. By the 60s the PG tips tea bag was launched, revolutionising how we make a cup of tea. This was taken one step
further in 1996 when the revolutionary pyramid teabag was launched, providing more space inside acting like a miniature
teapot, giving the leaves more room to move.
In 2011 PG tips launched “The Special Moments range” of teas. PG tips knows how much consumers love their normal cup
of tea but there are moments when they wants something a little more special, a twist to their everyday cuppa. That’s why
PG tips has created a range of teas that taste just a bit different, so consumers are sure to find the perfect tea whatever the
mood or occasion. The range is made by 4 variants: The Fresh One, The Strong One, The Evening One and The Hint of Earl
Grey One.
SUSTAINABLE TEA
At PG tips we’re proud to be one of the major tea brands with 100% Rainforest Alliance certified tea. So you can enjoy your
cup of PG tips safe in the knowledge that we’re looking after the people who grow your tea.
Every day, we drink 165 million cups of tea! But what happens to all those tea bags after they’ve been used? Well, many of
them are simply thrown in the bin, meaning they end up in landfill – which is harmful to the environment. In fact tea bags
are the largest contributor to unavoidable waste in the UK, generating 370,000 tonnes every year!
In 2012 we launched a project with Chelmsford Council, Brentwood Borough Council and WRAP to encourage tea drinkers
in Essex to recycle their used tea bags along with their food waste collections. With these sustainable thoughts in mind, you
can feel warm inside for two reasons as you drink your favourite brew.
Tips family
In 1956 PG Tips began using anthropomorphic chimpanzees in their TV advertisements. These were dressed in human clothes and were known as the
‘Tipps family’. Their voices were often provided by celebrities, such as Peter
Sellers and Bob Monkhouse. By 1958 PG Tips had risen from fourth to first
place in the British tea market. The chimpanzees were from Twycross Zoo
in Leicestershire.
These advetisements were stopped in the 1970s after complaints by animal
rights organisations. However sales dropped and the chimps were bought
back 18 months later. The last ‘Tipps family’ advert was broadcast in 2002.
The PG Tips chimps spawned a spin-off in memorabilia, including trading
cards and figurines.
T-birds
The ‘Tipps family’ were replaced with a house sharing group of claymation birds called the T-Birds, animated by Aardman, the company behind
Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. In Ireland these commercials were
still airing in late 2006, though advertising Lyons Tea (another Unilever
brand).
Wallace & Gromit
This led to PG tips becoming a major partner with Wallace and Gromit’s
first film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, launched in October 2005. PG
offered “Gromit” mugs on pack in the supermarket. According to The
Grocer magazine, Unilever reported that during this “Gromit” mug promotion, PG tips sales increased 600 percent. Wallace and Gromit also
appeared in an advert with Lady Tottington (another character from the
film) around the same time.
This is a good looking website with a good layout and some
quick and easy navigation. There is enough information to cover
such things as brand heritage and current range without overloading the reader. Whilst, ‘The ‘Playtime at PG Tips’ page is
entertaining one with a few fun games to balance out the more
information based aspects of the site. Also of note is the beautiful hand-drawn look to the monkey graphics featured throughout the site which, other than being very charming, are proving
quite distinctive amongst the computer-esque output of many
manufacturers today.
Tetley’s Tea
Tetley is a British beverage manufacturer, and the world’s second largest manufacturer and distributor of tea. Tetley’s manufacturing and distribution business is spread across 40 countries and sells over 60 branded tea bags. It is the largest tea
company in the United Kingdom and Canada and the second largest in the United States by volume. It is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Tata Global Beverages (formerly Tata Tea).
After Tetley was purchased by the Tata Group in 2000, most of its business in Asia was integrated with Tata Tea and the
company planned to completely integrate its worldwide business with Tata Tea by 2006. The new group, Tata Tea Group,
later renamed Tata Global Beverages, is the second largest manufacturer of tea in the world after Unilever.
Tea drinking is a British institution, a daily ritual for many millions and has been around for thousands of years. Britain’s
involvement in the tea industry dates back hundreds of years adding many customs, phrases and items into everyday use
such as teaspoon, tea towel and afternoon tea.
It’s not just China and India that grow tea; there are many countries and regions that grow and sell tea worldwide, each
with its own unique taste characteristics. In Britain we predominately source leaves from East Africa, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Every week Tetley buys one million kilos of tea, which make countless cups of tea that the world enjoys everyday.
Tetley’s tea history began in 1837, when two brothers, Joseph and Edward Tetley started to sell tea and became such a success that they set up as tea merchants. In 1856, in partnership with Joseph Ackland, they set up “Joseph Tetley & Company, Wholesale Tea Dealers”. In the 1880s they began to sell tea to the United States of America, and started to bring ideas
back; one of these was the tea bag.
In 1953, Tetley introduced the first tea bag into Britain and since the 1960s Tetley has continued to develop its range by
introducing innovative and exciting teas and formats worldwide.
In 1989 the round tea bag was launched, latching on to the fashion for drinking tea from a mug, rather than a cup. Next
came the Drawstring ‘No drip, no mess’ tea bag in 1994, becoming a favourite in Britain, the US, France, Russia and Poland,
and in 2004 fruit and herbals infusions, green and speciality teas had joined the portfolio.
Tetley is the second largest tea brand globally and is enjoyed in 70 countries. In the UK we are a loved tea brand, providing
a variety of blends and formats that really help build tea sales and grow businesses, which is why more and more caterers
are choosing to join forces with Tetley.
Tetley & the Tea Bag
Tetley and the Tetley tea bag
Tea bags were accidentally invented in 1908 when Thomas Sullivan began to send sample tea in silk bags, rather than the
more expensive tins. Recipients of these silk bags thought the tea was intended to be brewed in such a way, and placed the
bags into their cups.
As this practice grew more well-known, Tetley Tea also began to expand into tea bags.
While tea bags only made up about 5% of Tetley Tea sales by the 1930s, Tetley Tea persisted as they believed tea bags
would be the future of tea. In 1953, Tetley Tea launched the Tetley Tea Bag in Britain.
The Tetley Tea Bag has now become one of Tetley’s largest sources of income, and Tetley Tea has continued to design new
tea bags. Aside from the drawstring tea bag, where the tea bag has two strings for easy wringing, Tetley has also recently
designed the round tea bag for easier and more consistent brewing.
Modern technology and Tetley
Tetley’s journey as a company has of course been strongly shaped by technology over the past 175 years, which has had a
huge effect on tea production. It has been crucial for Tetley to continuously invest in new technologies in order to meet the
increasing demands of the British tea drinking public. Sue Whitecross, one of Tetley’s longest serving worker, who has been
with the company for 38 years, remembers when the factory broke the record in 1974 for the largest number of tea bags
produced in a week with 40 million. Now the factory can make that in a five-hour shift.
Technology has also helped Tetley develop people’s love of tea drinking through innovative and exciting ideas, such as the
introduction of the first tea bag to the UK market in 1953. Then in 1989, as the teapot became less popular and people
drinking tea from mugs, Tetley created the now iconic round tea bag.
Tetley Tea Folk
Some important people in Tetley’s history that cannot be forgotten are the Tetley Tea Folk. Gaffer, Sidney and company entered the timeline in 1973, when they were introduced through the Tetley adverts. The Tetley Tea Folk have provided some
of the most memorable advertising on TV screens, instilling into the British public’s culture well-known lines such as “Tetley
make tea bags make tea,” “2,000 perforations let the flavour flood out” and “That’s better. That’s Tetley.”
Tetley and Expansion
In 1871, Joseph Tetley took his son, Joseph Tetley Junior into the business. Tetley Tea expanded into the
blending and packing of tea. By 1888, Tetley Tea expanded into the United States, and began to distribute
tea in the country. Joseph Tetley Junior took over the business in 1889, after the death of his father. Tetley
Tea continued to expand in America, and by 1913 Tetley Tea had established plants in New York City.
Tetley tea potted history
1837:Tetley is founded by Joseph and Edward Tetley from Yorkshire, who originally were salt merchants and decided to add
tea to their repertoire. The company becomes one of the UK’s first purveyors of tea to the mass market.
1856:The Tetley brothers move to Cullum Street, London, just yards from the tea auction rooms. By 1888 they have an office in America too.
1908:A happy accident. A New York tea merchant called Thomas Sullivan sends out samples of tea in small silken bags.
Some customers assume they should put the whole bag in the pot and it works.
1939:Tetley’s British representative, TI Tetley-Jones, goes to America and brings back the idea of the tea bag. In 1940, the
first Tetley tea bag machines, known as the grey ladies, stitch 40 tea bags a minute for export.
1953:Tetley brings the tea bag to the UK market for the first time enabling a smoother, stronger cup of tea that brews in
minutes in a cup or teapot.
1968:Tetley tea sales soar to 5,000 tonnes a year.
1973:The Tetley Tea Folk enter with Gaffer and Sidney and engage the nation. Tetley is acquired by J Lyons, becoming Lyons Tetley.
1989:Tetley is the first to launch round tea bags. They are especially well suited to the growing popularity of brewing tea in
mugs.
1994:Tetley’s techies are the first to create the dripless drawstring tea bag. Launched first in Australia in 1994, it is now a
favourite in Britain, the US, France, Russia and Poland.
1998:The 300-year-old London Tea Auction holds its final sale. In its early days, tea was sold ‘by the candle’. A candle was
lit at the beginning of each lot, and when an inch had burned away, the hammer fell.
2004:Tetley offers fruit and herbal infusions, green teas and specialty teas in addition to its classic blend tea bags.
2010:Every week, Tetley buys one million kilos of tea, which make countless cups of Tetley tea that the world enjoys every
day.
2012:Tetley launches Blend of Both, a delicious combination of great tasting original Tetley with the added healthy goodness
of green tea.
Tetley’s Tea Packaging
Nestle
Nestlé UK has been a part of life in the UK since the 1860s. The company has its roots in three big organisations; Nestlé, the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company and Rowntree’s of York. The first two merged in 1905 and then took over Rowntree’s in 1988.
The Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company was formed in 1866 and began importing condensed milk through a London agent. Popularity for
their tinned milk quickly grew and they acquired their first condenser in Aylesbury in 1875.
Henri Nestlé’s story started in 1867 in Switzerland when he began producing infant formula for babies who couldn’t be breast fed. In 1868 he set
up a sales office in London and began importing infant formula into the UK
In 1901 Nestlé opened its first UK factory and in 1905 merged with the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company. Before long the Nestlé name was
appearing on infant formula, chocolates and tinned milks up and down the country.
In 1939 Nescafé was launched in the UK and was an ‘instant hit’ allowing consumers to enjoy quality coffee without having to go to the trouble
of roasting, grinding or percolating.
Over the years other household names have also joined the Nestlé stable such as the Swiss food giant Maggi in 1947, makers of soups and
sauces famous the world over, Buitoni in 1988, the Italian food favourite and some of the Continent’s most glamorous mineral water brands like
Perrrier, San Pelligrino and Vittel in the 1990s.
The Nestlé logo evolution
Henri Nestlé was one of the first Swiss manufacturers to build up a brand with the help of a logo.
The original Nestlé trademark was based on his family’s coat of arms, which featured a single bird sitting on a nest. This was a reference to the
family name, which means ‘nest’ in German.
Henri Nestlé adapted the coat of arms by adding three young birds being fed by a mother, to create a visual link between his name and his company’s infant cereal products. He began using the image as a trademark in 1868.
Today, the familiar bird’s nest logo continues to be used on Nestlé products worldwide, in a modified form.
In 1988 Nestlé acquired Rowntree’s, the famous British confectioners. Rowntree’s was founded as a grocery business by Mary Tuke, a young
Quaker, in 1725. Her business was eventually acquired by Henry Isaac Rowntree in 1862, who turned it from a simple cocoa works into confectionery company. Henry was joined in business in 1869 by his brother Joseph Rowntree who eventually took over.
Rowntree’s York firm has been responsible for many of the great confectionery brands that we know today, like Kit Kat, Aero, Smarties, Polo,
Black Magic, Dairy Box, Fruit Pastilles and Fruit Gums. The Rowntree’s are not just famous for their confectionery; they’re also famed as leading
Quaker Philanthropists. The Rowntree family built a model village just a mile north of their factory to give local people alternative accommodation to inner-city slum dwellings. Joseph Rowntree also set up four charitable trusts, one to lobby for parliamentary reform, another to run the
model village, one to make charitable grants and a fourth to investigate the causes of poverty.
Since Nestlé took over Rowntree’s we have invested over £200 million into the York site alone and we’ve invested £100 million in our Tutbury
factory.
In fact, between 2006 -2011 Nestlé have invested £224 million in our UK sites.
Nestlé is a major UK employer, we employ 6,500 employees across 20 sites. We are one of the UK food industry’s major exporters, exporting in
excess of £260m worth of products each year to 50 countries around the world.
2010
We sold our remaining Alcon shares to Novartis and acquired Kraft Foods’ frozen pizza business.
We faced a challenge from Greenpeace who wanted to be reassured about our commitment to sustainable Palm Oil. It was the first time we saw social media being used in a substantial way to challenge us
and ask questions. We didn’t get the handling of our response to the campaign itself quite right in social
media, but on the issue at its heart – palm oil - we took steps to both strengthen our position and to
explain it more clearly. We launched the Nestlé Cocoa Plan which supplies high quality, disease-resistant
plantlets to farmers helping them rejuvenate their farms and increase productivity. The Nescafé Plan
was also launched – to address responsible farming, sourcing and consumption across our coffee supply
chain.
We announced the creation of Nestlé Health Science and the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences, innovative ventures aimed at the prevention and eventually treatment of chronic medical conditions with
science-based personalised nutrition solutions.
2011
We voluntarily submitted our policies and procedures to the FTSE4Good Policy Committee for independent review and became the first infant formula manufacturer to be included in the FTSE4Good Index.
This is the London Stock Exchanges’s responsible investment index and the only index that evaluates
companies on their responsible marketing of breast-milk substitutes, alongside human rights and supply chain criteria.
Yinlu China was at the forefront, as we announced partnerships with the Chinese food companies Yinlu, a manufacturer of ready-to-drink peanut
milk and canned rice porridge and with Hsu Fu Chi, a confectionery and snacks manufacturer.
We became the first food company to partner with the Fair Labor Association. This partnership will help us investigate if children are working in
cocoa farms that supply our factories and, where we find problems, to solve them.
Nestlé Health Science S.A acquired Prometheus Laboratories Inc., a US-based company specialised in diagnostics and in-licensed specialty pharmaceuticals in gastroenterology and oncology. It also acquired a minority stake in Vital Foods, a New Zealand based company that specialises in
the development of kiwifruit- based solutions for gastrointestinal conditions.
2012
We acquired Wyeth Nutrition (Pfizer Nutrition) in a strategic move to enhance our position in global infant nutrition.
2013
Nestlé Health Science acquired Pamlab, a US-based company with an innovative portfolio of medical food products for use under medical supervision in the nutritional management of patients with mild cognitive impairment, depression and diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
We divested Jenny Craig businesses in North America and Oceania to North Castle Partners.
2014
We extended our activities to include the field of specialised, medical skin treatments through the creation of Nestlé Skin Health S.A., a global
leader focused on meeting the world’s increasing skin health needs with a broad range of innovative and scientifically-proven products. Nestlé
Skin Health S.A. is managed as a wholly-owned Nestlé subsidiary with its own Board of Directors and headquarters located in Lausanne.
We divested PowerBar to Post Holdings.
Nestlé wanted to go further in its innovation and launched Nescafé Dolce Gusto in Switzerland, Germany and the UK in 2006, and in Spain a year
later.
The “coffee shop-at-home” machine can switch from hot to cold. Nescafé, Nestea and Nesquik capsules are available for the five machine ranges
including Melody, Circolo, Piccolo, Fontana and Creativa.
Two years later Nescafé Barista, which is available exclusively in Japan, was developed as the only “at-home coffee by the cup” system of its kind
that uses soluble coffee.
Nestlé Professional, the Nestlé business that supplies the foodservice out-of-home sector, is also a strong source of innovation for Nescafé, offering three ranges of hot beverages solutions including Nescafé Alegria, Nescafé Milano and Viaggi, by Nescafé.
These systems are now installed in 400,000 points of consumption worldwide, serving 175 cups per second.
The latest innovation, Nescafé Milano Lounge machine, is designed to allow a broad range of foodservice operators to compete in the fast-growing, self-service, on-the-go, specialty coffee category.
The Nescafé Plan
Nestlé has also made significant progress to address responsible farming, sourcing, manufacturing and consumption across its coffee supply
chain.
In 2010, the company unveiled the Nescafé Plan in Mexico City.
It is part of a CHF 500 million investment in coffee projects by 2020.
The plan includes a set of global objectives that aims to help Nestlé further optimise its coffee supply chain, including an increase in direct purchasing as well as technical assistance programmes for coffee farmers.
Under the Nescafé Plan, the company aims to buy more than 180,000 tonnes of sustainable coffee sourced from about 170,000 farmers by
2015.
Typhoo Tea
Typhoo’s Beginings
John Sumner took over his family grocery business in Birmingham in the 1900s. Interested in selling a specialty product,
he turned to his sister Mary Augusta for ideas. Mary, who suffered from indigestion, had recently tried a tea made with leaf
particles that eased her stomach pain. In that time period, tea was made from large, whole leaves and not from fragments
or fannings. While the higher levels of tannin in whole leaf stalks may cause indigestion, low levels of tannin, like those in
particles from the leaf’s edge, may actually soothe an upset stomach.
John named the new tea Typhoo Tips (mistakenly spelled “Tipps” on early packaging), Typhoo meaning “doctor” in Chinese,
and Tips referring to the tips of the tea leaves used. The tips of the tea leaves produced 80 more cups per pound, making
Typhoo more economical than loose leaf varieties. It was also the first tea to be sold pre-packaged, which made it convenient. Doctors recommended the tea for stomach ailments. Soon John was selling Typhoo in grocery stores and chemists’
shops. In 1909 John found an agency to buy and blend his tea in Ceylon. The tea would be bought directly from tea auctions, which would reduce the cost dramatically.
During WWI, the British government announced that it would ration tea. Typhoo, which had gained popularity and customer
loyalty, was too specialized to be included in the ration. Customers requested Typhoo be rationed, and 4,000 medical professionals signed an appeal. John already included tea cards in the Typhoo packs with pictures on a range of subjects and
information on the benefits of Typhoo tea. Before the ration he included cards asking consumers to write to the Tea Controller telling him the medical reasons they needed Typhoo. Eventually Typhoo was given a trade.
By the 1930s Typhoo expanded and packaging moved to larger facilities using the latest machinery. However the manufacturer in Ceylon was no longer meeting Typhoo’s quality control requirements. It was purchasing very low quality tea and
overcharging to make a profit. In 1933 Typhoo terminated the Ceylon agency’s contract and hired Carson & Co. to take over.
As Typhoo increased in capacity, it began to hire in house tea blenders and tasters. John Sumner died in 1934, and his son,
J R High Sumner became the company’s chairman.
Rationing of tea began again with the onset of WWII, and bombing nearly destroyed Typhoo factories. An emergency batch
of tea was blended at Messrs Brooke Bond Ltd. and Lyons Ltd. factories. Typhoo employees worked hard to repair the factories enough for production to take place. A limited amount of Typhoo tea was available in June of 1941. After the war and
rationing had ended, the factories were fully repaired and Typhoo began promoting its brand once again. The picture cards
inserted in Typhoo packs before the war proved to be very popular, so they were also reintroduced.
With more tea being shipped from India, new packing machines and the addition of a shipping department, Typhoo was
able to handle increased output. By 1960 it was the brand leader. In the mid 1960s, Typhoo was exporting to 40 countries
and packing 80 million pounds of tea a year. J R Sumner, who was 80 years old, retired and managing director H C Kelley became chairman.
In the coming years, Typhoo went through three significant changes.
1968 - Typhoo merged with Schweppes’ old Food Division to form Typhoo Schweppes
1969 - Cadbury joined the companies to form Cadbury Schweppes Typhoo
1986 – Premier Brands bought Typhoo in a management buyout
After Premier Brands gained ownership of Typhoo, it purchased the Scottish tea company Melrose’s, the
Glengettie Tea Company, Ridgways, Jersey Trading Corporation SrL, and London Herb & Spice. These purchases were made to increase the company’s tea business and make a significant profit. New products like
Typhoo One Cup and Typhoo Q Tea instant were developed.
Premier Brands was purchased by Hillsdown Holdings in 1989 and by Hicks Muse Tate and Furst in 1999. That year Typhoo
was the first tea brand to bring a green tea blend to the UK market. In 2005 Typhoo changed hands again when Appejay
Surrendra Group, which is among India’s top tea producers, obtained Typhoo and the other brands. Throughout the many
changes, Typhoo has consistently offered the same high quality products consumers have come to know and enjoy. Today
Typhoo sells 23 million packs a year.
Manufacturing Typhoo Tea
Typhoo has always had a close relationship with its suppliers, traveling around the world to find the finest teas, evaluating
the drying equipment and experimenting with packing materials. In 1992 Typhoo launched a Quality Assurance Programme
to monitor in-house suppliers. Typhoo checks the quality of the fields and factories, employee working conditions, safety
and health issues, product quality and more. The goal of the program is to maintain and continuously improve standards.
Typhoo is a core member of the Ethical Trading Initiative, which is an alliance of businesses, unions, and non-governmental
organizations in the UK. The organization supports ethical trading and satisfactory working conditions according to the labor
standards. Typhoo is a brand you can trust, demanding quality in all aspects of the tea business.
By the mid 1960s, Typhoo was annually packing more than 80 million pounds of tea and exporting to 40 countries worldwide. J R Hugh Sumner, aged 80, finally retired and handed over the chairmanship to managing director H C Kelley.
Typhoo’s success had, over the years, attracted attention from potential investors. However, it wasn’t until the late 1960s
that the management was tempted into a merger. They entered into talks with Schweppes, the famous soft drinks firm, and
on 24 January 1968 it was announced that Typhoo was to join Schweppes’ old Food Division to form a new company called
Typhoo Schweppes. A year later, Cadbury’s also joined the conglomeration, creating Cadbury Schweppes Typhoo.
In 1986 Typhoo was sold in a management buyout and the new company was called Premier Brands. The company immediately set about increasing its tea business with the purchase of the famous Scottish tea company, Melrose’s, in November
1986. This was the first of four acquisitions made by Premier in 1986-7. The second purchase was the Glengettie Tea Company followed by Ridgways and Jersey Trading Corporation SrL.
Significant profit improvement was a key feature of the following years. Premier continued to expand its tea operation by
acquiring the herbal tea market leader, London Herb & Spice. Internal growth also saw the development of products, including Typhoo One Cup and Typhoo Q Tea instant.
In 1989 Premier Brands was bought by Hillsdown Holdings and then in 1999 by American venture capitalists Hicks Muse
Tate and Furst. Further product developments were seen in 1999 when Typhoo became the first tea brand to introduce a
green tea blend to the UK market and, in 2004, with the launch of Typhoo Fruit and Herb.
On 31 October 2005 Apeejay Surrendra Group, one of India’s largest tea producers, acquired Typhoo and its associated
brands.
Market
Tea is Britain’s favourite drink with 91% of the UK population consuming it, creating a market worth £557 million. Tea is a
fundamental part of daily life for most consumers, and is drunk for a number of different occasions and needs. Tea satisfies
both functional and emotional needs; for example, not only can it refresh, warm up and relax you but can act also as an
ice-breaker at social gatherings. The tea market has shown a small decline in recent years.
Ordinary tea bags take the largest share of the tea market, with a 77% share, but it is the emerging sectors, such as Decaf,
Fruit and Herb, Organic and Green teas, which are showing the strongest growth, albeit from a smaller base. For example,
the Fruit and Herb sector is worth £26 million and is showing growth but currently accounts for less than 5% of the total tea
market in terms of value (Source: ACNielsen MAT January 24 2004).
However, the tea market is currently in a state of flux. The hot drinks category is under pressure from the growing sectors
of soft drinks and mineral water, which is favoured particularly by the younger generation. However, studies into the demographics of the UK, illustrate that as a nation we are getting a lot older and that the UK is, in fact, an ageing society.
Manufacturers have acknowledged the need to appeal to all age groups and, in recent times, have focused on modernising
their images, with new advertising campaigns and packaging and design innovations, in ways that younger consumers will
find fun and relevant without alienating the older consumers.
Brand Values
The key qualities of Typhoo are freshness and premium quality but it also has less obvious brand values that distinguish it
from its rivals. From the beginning,Typhoo has been an active, revitalising and uplifting brand, refreshing both mind and
body. This idea of revitalising its drinkers has featured in one form or another in all Typhoo’s marketing, and continues right
up to the present day.
Things you didn’t know about Typhoo
Typhoo was the first brand to be sold prepackaged rather than loose over the counter. At the time, it was believed to have
medicinal qualities and was sold through chemists’ shops. The slogan on the first label read ‘Typhoo, the tea that doctors
recommend.’
The beverage’s curative qualities were ascribed to the purity of Typhoo’s ‘leaf-edge’ tea, compared to more ordinary varieties. During World War 1, when the Government bought up and rationed tea stocks, Typhoo inserted circulars into packs
urging customers to complain. The ‘tea controller’, deluged with letters, finally relented and Typhoo was made freely available.
To make the perfect cup of tea and to draw out the best flavour of the tea the water must contain oxygen, this is reduced if
the water is boiled more than once.
The custom of tipping originated from English Tea Gardens where small, locked wooden boxes were placed on the tables
inscribed with the letters TIPS which stood for ‘To Insure Prompt Service’. If one wished the waiter to hurry, one would drop
a coin into the box on being seated.
Lipton Tea
Lipton Tea History
Thomas J. Lipton Company is the largest manufacturer of tea in the world. Lipton controlled about 50 percent of the U.S. brewed-tea market going into the
mid-1990s and also held strong positions in markets for instant, fountain, and bottled tea products. Lipton, through various subsidiaries, is also involved in
other food industries. It became the top North American manufacturer of ice cream novelty foods in the late 1980s, for example, and was the top seller of
instant soup. Lipton was striving to become number one in all tea industry categories in the mid-1990s.
Thomas J. Lipton Company bears the name of its founder, an immigrant of Irish descent that sailed to the United States in 1865. Lipton’s story is an intriguing
rags-to-riches tale. The 15-year-old Lipton, who had fled his economically deprived homeland, arrived in New York with $8 in his pocket and not a friend on
the continent. Had he arrived at almost any other time he might have found work in New York. However, the Civil War was just ending, war factories were
closing down, and veterans were returning home to take any jobs that were available. Lipton walked the streets of New York for several days before he finally
got an offer from an agent to go to work in the tobacco fields of war-ravaged Virginia.
For the next three or four years Lipton traveled up and down the eastern seaboard and the Mississippi River chasing any job that became available. Among
other engagements, he worked in the South Carolina rice fields, as a carman outside New Orleans, as a plantation bookkeeper, and even as a firefighter in
Charleston, South Carolina. Lipton returned to New York periodically to look for work, but inevitably was forced back to the depressed South, where labor
was scarce. A vagabond with few friends, Lipton spent several difficult years trying to find steady, lucrative employment. His face was slashed by a crazed,
knife-wielding Spaniard in the Carolinas, and once he stowed away on a coastal steamer when he did not have the fare to pay for the trip. Perhaps the greatest respite from his travails was when the proprietor of a plantation for which he worked took him into his home to be cared for by his wife. The employer
only took him in, however, because an ugly hatchet accident severely damaged Lipton’s foot.
Tea was selling for 50 cents per pound in 1890, which Lipton believed was too high a price for the working-class family. He believed that he could grow and
sell tea himself for about 30 cents and still make a hefty profit simply by cutting out the middleman. By doing so, he would open the tea market up to a much
broader spectrum of the population. Lipton also devised a clever marketing scheme to sell the tea. At the time, tea was sold out of large chests and weighed
out for the customers. Buyers often had no way of knowing if the tea was fresh, or if the seller was giving them the proper amount. Lipton decided to sell tea
in packets by the pound, half pound, and quarter pound. Besides being fresher, the tea would be easier to handle and more marketable in colorful, neat packaging. He even created an advertising slogan before he actually got into the tea business: “Direct from the tea gardens to the teapot.”
The Lipton name would eventually become nearly synonymous with tea in the Western world. Interestingly, Lipton was a 40-year-old, self-made millionaire
before he ever sold an ounce of the stuff. He initially got into the tea business as a sideline to his food retailing business, which by the early 1890s incorporated more than 300 stores. He quickly realized, though, that he had vastly underestimated the demand for his low-cost, packaged teas. Lipton seized the
opportunity that lay before him. Instead of simply enjoying big demand for his tea, moreover, he aggressively marketed “Lipton’s Tea” back in England with
street parades, posters, Indian’s marching through the streets, and signs perched on trains and buses. Sales mushroomed. Lipton’s Glasgow warehouses were
overrun, so he quickly moved his headquarters to London. Cash poured in so fast that Lipton lost track of how much money he had. Within a few short years
the Lipton name had been transformed from a well-known store chain to a household icon.
By the late 1890s India was shipping a huge 120 million tons of tea annually. As demand boomed, Lipton’s tea operations rocketed and quickly dwarfed the
sales and profits gleaned from the Lipton grocery stores. Lipton was operating five tea plantations by the mid-1890s, but demand was simply too great,
forcing him to open other plantations. By the early 1900s Lipton’s tea empire had become vast, with stockyards not only in Europe but also in North America. In the United States, in fact, Lipton had returned victorious. He owned valuable properties in New York, as well as in other parts of the country, and even
became an acclaimed public figure--He eventually returned to live in the United States for several years during the late 1910s. Meanwhile, back in England,
Lipton became associated with several members of the Royal family, was knighted, and established himself as an international figure.
Lipton went public with its first stock offering in 1897. People clamored to buy into the now-public company. Lipton posted a profit of about £176,000 that
year. As his business empire continued to grow, Lipton became active in other interests, particularly yachting. In fact, Lipton became as well known as a
yachting enthusiast in many areas of the world as he was a businessman. He raced for the America’s Cup and sailed in races throughout the world, all the
while keeping an eye on his flourishing tea interests. Despite setbacks at the beginning and during World War I, Lipton survived and even prospered during
the early 1920s. Unfortunately, Lipton’s luck began to turn in the mid-1920s. The directors of his company forced him out of control when he was 76 years
old, assigning him the figurehead title of “Life President and Chairman.”
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lipton’s new management team scrambled to reorganize the bloated tea and food company. Although the organization
remained sound at its core, it needed to eliminate unnecessary operations and consolidate offices and divisions into a more cohesive whole. By 1930, earlier than most investors had expected, the company had returned to profitability and was even paying dividends on its shares. Lipton continued to post gains
throughout much of the 1930s and 1940s, despite turbulence caused by economic problems and World War II. During those decades Lipton retained its status as a dominant supplier of bagged tea to the United States, northern Europe, and other parts of the world. Rampant growth in tea consumption, though,
had long since stalled, and Lipton was forced to do battle in an increasingly competitive industry.
Lipton’s enterprising adaptation to shifting tea and beverage markets during the mid-1900s allowed it to post solid, steady gains. Indeed, between the early
1950s and the early 1980s Lipton enjoyed an unblemished record of revenue and profit growth--Much of that time was spent as a subsidiary of the multi-billion-dollar Anglo-Dutch Unilever NV. By the early 1980s, though, competition in Lipton’s traditional markets was under attack from other established food and
beverage companies. To keep pace with intensifying competition, Lipton stepped up efforts to diversify by adding a wide array of juices, tea drinks, sweeteners, salad dressings--Lipton owned the venerable Wish-Bone salad dressing brand name, for example--and other goods. Meanwhile, Lipton continued to
dominate the tea industry. As the only major producer of both bagged and instant teas, Lipton controlled about 50 percent of the North American tea market.
Lipton went into the mid-1980s with roughly $1 billion in annual sales, about half of which were attributable to tea and soup sales. Throughout the decade
the company continued to experiment with new food and beverage products and to cement its dominance of the tea and instant soup segment. To that end,
Lipton posted healthy gains in the fast-growing instant tea industry by conducting a multimillion-dollar marketing blitz. Going into 1987 Lipton was serving 13
percent of the entire North American soup market, including both wet and dry soup products. Also in the late 1980s, Lipton became the largest manufacturer of frozen novelty products in the United States when it purchased the Popsicle and Disney brand frozen treat lines. In the early 1990s, moreover, Lipton
bought out Klondike ice cream. That purchase helped push Lipton’s overall revenue base to a whopping $1.4 billion in 1991.
During the early 1990s and going into the mid-1990s, Lipton was benefiting not only from its increasingly diversified food and beverage lines, but also from
renewed growth in the tea industry. Driving growth in Lipton’s core product line was demand for ready-to-drink fountain, canned, and bottled teas, and for
gourmet bagged teas. Lipton introduced new products for both growing segments during the early 1990s and proclaimed its intent to command the surging
ready-to-drink tea industry. To that end, Lipton teamed up with Pepsi to offer seven bottled teas, three canned teas, and four fountain tea drinks. Lipton entered 1995 as the U.S. leader in novelty ice cream and instant soup industries and as a top seller of salad dressings, snacks, seasonings, gelatin products, and
various side dishes. As it had since near the turn of the century, Lipton also dominated the global tea industry.
3 ways Lipton Changed Tea History
Sir Thomas Lipton grew from humble beginnings as a Glaswegian shop-keepers’ son to start a tea revolution, transforming tea from an expensive luxury into a drink of the people.
His spirit, passion and imagination still burns with us today. These three inspiring moments from the history of Lipton Tea show how tea-drinking
was changed forever by Sir Thomas…
1. Marketing genius builds Lipton from nothing
In 1889, Sir Thomas Lipton celebrated his first 20,000 tea chests arriving in Glasgow with a brass band and bagpipe parade.
It was as spectacular as the public had come to expect from Lipton. Other promotions since the first Lipton grocery store opened in Glasgow in
1871 had included importing the world’s largest cheese, and issuing ‘Lipton Currency Notes’. These wacky stunts now have their place in modern
marketing history, and paid off to create a nation of Lipton-lovers - by the time Sir Thomas shipped his first batch of tea, he was a millionaire.
This didn’t mean slowing down: it was time to branch out into even more tea-riffic ventures…
2. Tea-pickers get a better deal
What happens when you’re a successful, larger-than-life public figure? Competitors want your business.
In 1890, Sir Thomas set sail to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to buy his first tea fields, throwing rivals off his tail by telling everyone he was going to Australia. Land prices were low following a coffee blight, so Lipton bought 5500 acres of the Dambatenne tea plantation in Ceylon’s high country.
Sir Thomas re-organised the plantations and introduced innovative cable car systems to transport leaves, increasing production efficiency.
3. Low prices make tea a treat for everyone
At the time, UK tea prices were exorbitant – it was a drink for the rich. Thomas Lipton changed all that, cutting out the middlemen to sell tea at
a lower rate. Instead of arriving in crates, loose tea was now packaged at multiple weight options. The product was standardised, so you always
knew you could trust Lipton for a perfect cuppa. Later, Lipton was the first brand to sell tea leaves in tea bags.
This was a revolution. Finally, you didn’t need to be a big spender to get your hands on great tea.
A whopping 100 billion Lipton drinks are enjoyed every year around the world. We think Sir Thomas would be pretty proud of that. We still make
tea in his larger-than-life spirit, because we believe it’s better when everyone has a cup.
Sir Thomas Lipton: The father of modern advertising
Lipton was born in 1850, in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1865, Lipton moved to the United States where he held various jobs, including working on a
tobacco farm, a rice plantation and a streetcar. Lipton, however, was inspired by working in a department store’s grocery.
While working there, he witnessed and learned the power of American merchandising. American merchandising was often involved outrageous
images or actions, with catchy slogans designed to grab as much attention as possible. Some advertising campaigns were not adverse to publicity stunts.
Lipton returned to Scotland and opened his own grocery store in 1871. Following from the lessons learnt in America, he promoted the store by
conducting publicity stunts.
Lipton’s first publicity stunt was a parade of the largest hogs in captivity bearing the sign, “I’m going to Lipton’s. The best shop in town for Irish
bacon!” This stunt jammed traffic and grabbed headlines - exactly Lipton’s intent.
By 1880, Lipton had twenty stores, and by 1890, Lipton owned three hundred stores and had become a household name.
Lipton Packaging
Starbucks
The history of Starbucks starts back in 1971 when the first store opened in Seattle, Washington. Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker got
the idea from Alfred Peet (of Peet’s Coffee fame). The store initially sold just coffee beans and coffee making equipment rather than the drinks
they have become so famous. After about 10 years, Howard Schultz was hired as Director of Retail Operations and came to the conclusion that
they should be selling drinks rather than just beans and machines. He couldn’t convince the owners, so he went his own way to start the Il Giornale chain of coffee bars in 1986.
Starbucks Corporation is the leading roaster, retailer, and marketer of specialty coffee in the world. Its operations include upwards of 7,300 coffee
shops and kiosks in the United States, and nearly 3,000 in 34 other countries, with the largest numbers located in Japan, Canada, the United
Kingdom, China, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Mexico, Australia, Germany, and New Zealand. In addition to a variety of coffees and coffee drinks, Starbucks shops also feature Tazo teas; pastries and other food items; espresso machines, coffee brewers, and
other coffee- and tea-related items; and music CDs. The company also sells many of these products via mail-order and online at starbucks.com.
It also wholesales its coffee to restaurants, businesses, education and healthcare institutions, hotels, and airlines. Through a joint venture with
Pepsi-Cola Company, Starbucks bottles Frappuccino beverages and the Starbucks DoubleShot espresso drink and sells them through supermarkets and convenience and drugstores. Through a partnership with Kraft Foods, Inc., the company sells Starbucks whole bean and ground coffee
into grocery, warehouse club, and mass merchandise stores. A third joint venture, with Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc., develops superpremium
coffee ice creams and distributes them to U.S. supermarkets. From a single small store that opened in 1971 to its status as a 21st-century gourmet coffee giant, Starbucks has led a coffee revolution in the United States and beyond.
Accelerating Growth in the Early 21st Century
In the early 21st century, Starbucks was working to achieve Schultz’s ambitious goals of 500 stores in both Japan and Europe by 2003, as well
as his ultimate goal of 20,000 units worldwide. With about half of that total envisioned to be located outside North America, Schultz decided
to spend more time on the company’s overseas operations. In June 2000 he stepped down as CEO of the company to become its chief global
strategist, while remaining chairman. Schultz began working closely with Peter Maslen, who had taken charge of the international division in late
1999, following the retirement of Howard Behar. Assuming the CEO title was Orin Smith, who retained his previous responsibility for domestic
retail and wholesale operations, alliances, and coffee roasting and distribution.
Starbucks’ rate of expansion accelerated in the early 2000s: after opening about 1,200 new stores each year from 2001 to 2004, the company
added nearly 1,700 new outlets in 2005, pushing the chain past the 10,000 unit mark. About 1,150 of the units opened in 2005 were located in
the United States, bringing the domestic total to 7,300. Even this figure did not represent a saturated market, as Starbucks was now aiming to
eventually have 15,000 stores in the U.S. market alone. It also expected to eventually increase its international outlets from the approximately
3,000 that were operating in late 2005 to 15,000. Starbucks debuted in continental Europe in 2001 when stores were opened in Switzerland and
Austria, and further new territories were entered in each of the following years: Oman, Indonesia, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Greece in 2002;
Turkey, Chile, Peru, and Cyprus in 2003; Paris, France, in 2004; and Jordan in 2005. In addition, the Starbucks unit in Japan was taken public
in 2001. During this same period, the company’s revenues skyrocketed, surging from $2.17 billion in 2000 to $5.39 billion in 2005. Net earnings
increased more than fivefold, from $94.6 million to $494.5 million.
Among the new initiatives during this period, the company in 2001 introduced the Starbucks Card, a stored-value card that customers could use
and reload, and also began offering high-speed wireless Internet access at its stores. In 2002 the beverage line was extended to include the
first noncoffee/nontea blended concoction, the Crème Frappuccino, a cold, creamy vanilla drink. The Starbucks Card in 2003 was extended into
a combined credit and stored-value card. That same year, the company acquired Seattle Coffee Company from AFC Enterprises, Inc. for $72
million, thereby gaining the Seattle’s Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia coffee brands. Starbucks’ music endeavors expanded in 2004 with the
launch of the first Hear Music media bars at select Starbucks locations. These media bars enabled customers to burn unique compilation CDs
from an initial selection of 200,000 songs. Also in 2004 the company entered into an agreement with Jim Beam Brands Co. to develop and market a superpremium coffee liqueur, and the following year Jim Beam began distributing Starbucks Coffee Liqueur to licensed establishments, not
to Starbucks outlets. A further expansion of the outlets’ beverage offerings came in 2005 when Chantico drinking chocolate debuted in the United States and Canada and the company acquired Ethos Water.
In March 2005 Smith retired as CEO and was succeeded by Jim Donald, who had been president of the firm’s North America unit and had been
hired away from Pathmark Stores, Inc. in 2002. Donald was a main force behind a drive to broaden Starbucks outlets beyond coffee--not only
into music but also into food. Lunch items, typically sandwiches, began to be offered at many North American Starbucks, and testing of hot
breakfasts, such as ham, egg, and cheese on a muffin, began in 2004. Rather than morphing into a restaurant chain, however, Schultz (who
remained chairman) and Donald aimed to reshape Starbucks into a retailer with a broader array of products and services. At the same time, the
global expansion continued toward the eventual goal of 30,000 outlets worldwide and with China potentially rivaling the United States as Starbucks’ largest market. In 2006 alone, the company planned to open another 1,800 stores.
Starbuck history timeline:
1971 Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin, and Zev Siegl open the first Starbucks in Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
1982 Howard Schultz is hired to manage retail sales and marketing.
1983 Peet’s Coffee is acquired.
1985 Schultz leaves the company to found Il Giornale, an operator of coffee bars.
1987 Schultz buys the six-unit Starbucks chain from the original owners for $4 million, merges them into Il Giornale, renames his company Starbucks Corporation, and begins a national expansion; Baldwin remains president of the now separate Peet’s Coffee and Tea business.
1988 A mail-order catalog is introduced.
1992 Company goes public.
1993 First East Coast store opens, in Washington, D.C.
1995 Frappuccino beverages are introduced.
1996 Overseas expansion begins with units in Japan, Hawaii, and Singapore; partnership with Dreyer’s begins selling Starbucks Ice Cream; partnership with Pepsi-Cola begins selling bottled Frappuccino beverages.
1998 U.K.-based Seattle Coffee Company is acquired; partnership with Kraft Foods is formed for the distribution of Starbucks coffee into supermarkets.
1999 Pasqua Coffee Co. and Tazo Tea Company are acquired.
2000 Schultz steps aside as CEO to become chief global strategist, while remaining chairman; Orin Smith takes over as CEO.
2001 Starbucks expands to continental Europe with opening of stores in Switzerland and Austria.
2005 The 10,000th Starbucks opens.
At close inspection, the Starbucks logo makes no sense. At closer inspection, it makes even less sense, plus you risk
dipping your nose in frap foam. There’s some lady with long hair wearing a crown and holding what appears to be
two”¦ giant salmon? Decapitated palm trees? Miniature sand worms from Beetlejuice?
Conspiracy theorists have had a field day with the cryptic image. Anti-Semitic groups have claimed that the crowned
maiden is the biblical Queen Esther, proving that Starbucks is behind various Zionist plots. Others see parallels to Illuminati imagery. The real story is less about evil conspiracies than prudish graphic design. Since Starbucks was named
after a nautical character, the original Starbucks logo was designed to reflect the seductive imagery of the sea. An early
creative partner dug through old marine archives until he found an image of a siren from a 16th century Nordic woodcut. She was bare-breasted, twin-tailed and simply screamed, “Buy coffee!”.
In the ensuing years, Starbucks marketing types decided to tastefully cover up the mer-boobs with long hair, drop the
suggestive spread-eagle tail and give the 500-year-old sea witch a youthful facelift. The result? Queen Esther at Sea
World.
starbucks brand design comes to life in store design
The original drawing of the Starbucks brand signature or logo was based on a 15th-century Norse woodcut of a two-tailed siren. In a mythological mermaid, Terry Heckler found the perfect metaphor for the siren song of coffee that lures us cupside.
Heckler Associates worked on the first Starbucks store design in a space not far from the current Pike Place Market location in Seattle. The exterior sign was a huge, solid piece of 6-inch-thick cedar that the installer worried would pull the building down. The building did come down six
years later, but not because of the sign. When the original building was sold and demolished, Starbucks moved to its current location and most
of the interior fixtures were simply moved to the new shop. Twenty-five years later, we designed and wrote all the signage surrounding the commemoration of the Pike Place Market store as the original Starbucks.
starbucks logo applications inspire changes
Heckler Associates modified the Starbucks logo at a few points in the company’s history. The first time was when we were designing the first
Starbucks delivery trucks. The logo was huge—and so were the mermaid’s breasts. We re-drew her hairstyle to cover them up. As Starbucks
expanded across the country, the number of letters from women complaining about the siren’s risqué pose grew, and we made further changes.
For those who knew her back in the day, she sometimes seems a shadow of her siren self, but we love her anyway.