Tata Tea

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Tata Tea Limited

Type Private
Founded Calcutta, India (1964)
Headquarters Kolkata, India
Key people Ratan Tata (Chairman)
Products Tea
Employees 34,596 (2006)
Parent Tata Group
Website [Link]

Tata Tea Limited, also known as Tata-Tetley, is the world's second largest manufacturer and
distributor of tea.[1] Owned by India's Tata Group, the Tata Tea Limited markets tea under the
major brands Tata Tea, Tetley, Good Earth Teas and JEMČA. While Tata Tea is the largest tea
brand in India, Tetley is the largest tea company in the United Kingdom and Canada and the
second largest in the United States by volume[2] and JEMČA is Czech Republic's leading tea
company.[3]

Contents
[hide]

 1 The company
 2 History
o 2.1 1980s
o 2.2 1990s
o 2.3 2000s
 3 Marketing strategy
 4 Jaago re!!
 5 See also
 6 References
 7 External links

[edit] The company

It has been rechristened as Tata Global Beverages to include the range of health and nutrional
beverages it wants to enter into. Via subsidiary companies, Tata Tea manufactures 70 million
kilograms of tea in India, controls 54 tea estates, ten tea blending and packaging factories and
employs around 59,000 people.[4] The company owns 51 tea estates in India and Sri Lanka,
especially in Assam, West Bengal in eastern India and Kerala in the south. The company is the
largest manufacturer of Assam tea and Darjeeling tea and the second-largest manufacturer of
Ceylon tea.

Set up in 1964 as a joint venture with UK based James Finlay and Company to develop value-
added tea, the Tata Tea Group has now product and brand presence in 50 countries. It is one of
India's first multinational companies. The operations of Tata Tea and its subsidiaries focus on
branded product offerings in tea, but with a significant presence in plantation activity in India
and Sri Lanka.

The consolidated worldwide branded tea business of the Tata Tea Group contributes to around
86 per cent of its consolidated turnover with the remaining 14 per cent coming from bulk tea,
coffee and investment income. The company is headquartered in Kolkata. With an area of approx
159 km² under tea cultivation, Tata Tea produces around 30 million kg of black tea annually.
[citation needed]
Instant tea is used for light density 100% teas, iced tea mixes and in the preparation of
ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages.

Tata Tea owns five brands in India - Tata Tea, Tetley, Kanan Devan, Chakra Gold and Gemini.
The company has a 100% export-oriented unit (KOSHER and HACCP certified) manufacturing
instant tea in Munnar, Kerala, which is the largest such facility outside the United States. Tata
Tea has subsidiaries in Australia, Great Britain, United States, Czech Republic and India.

Tata's tea plantations in Munnar, India

[edit] History
[edit] 1980s

In the early 1980s, the tea industry in India was experiencing rising input and labor costs and
dwindling margins as well as high taxes. India was facing competition on the world market not
just from China, but also from other countries entering the business.
In 1983, Tata Tea bought the stake belonging to the James Finlay group to form the individual
entity Tata Tea. In the same year, the company decided to move from the commodities business
to consumer branding. The first brand Tata Tea was introduced. This was followed by other
brands like Kannan Devan, Agni, Gemini and Chakra Gold. In spite of being the largest market
in the world, the concept of branded tea took time to be accepted.[citation needed]

In 1987, Tata Tea set up a fully owned subsidiary, Tata Tea Inc., in the USA.

[edit] 1990s

In the 1990s, Tata Tea decided to take its brands into the global markets. It formed an export
joint venture with Britain's Tetley Tea in 1992. Other new enterprises included a majority
interest in Consolidated Coffee Ltd. (Tata Coffee Ltd.) and a joint venture to manage agricultural
estates in Sri Lanka. Tata Tea Inc. in the United States processed and marketed instant tea from
its facility in Florida, based on sourcing of instant tea products out of Munnar and Kerala. In
1993, they entered into a joint venture with Allied Lyons PLC in the UK to form Estate Tata
Tetley.

In the mid-1990s, Tata Tea attempted to buy Tetley and the Lankan JVC acquired 51%
shareholding in Watawala Plantations Ltd.

In 1997 the company was embroiled in a major scandal known as the "Tata Tapes controversy"
which related to funds the company provided to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom
(ULFA), an armed-struggle group operating in Assam.

By 1999, Tata Tea’s brands had a combined market share of 25% in India.[citation needed] The
company had 74 tea gardens and was producing 62 million kilograms of tea a year, two-thirds of
it packaged and branded. Towards the end of the year, the tea business was hit by a drought in
much of India. In addition, Russia, once the largest buyer of Indian tea, temporarily withdrew
from the market.

[edit] 2000s

Tetley tea canister from Canada

An important step for Tata Tea was the acquisition of the Tetley Group (based in the United
Kingdom) in 2000. It was a £271 million ($432 million) leveraged buyout. Tata Tea reportedly
outbid the American conglomerate Sara Lee in what was described as the largest takeover of a
foreign company by an Indian one to date. At the time, Tetley was the world's second largest tea
company after Unilever's Brooke Bond-Lipton and had an annual turnover of £300 million. It
was the market leader in Britain and Canada and a popular brand in the United States, Australia
and the Middle East.

Established in 1837, Tetley was the first British tea company to introduce the tea bag to the UK
in 1953. The tea bag was followed by the first round tea bag in 1989 and the 'no drip, no mess'
drawstring bag in 1997. Tetley now contributes for around two thirds of the total turnover of
Tata Tea.

From 2005 Tata Tea began a restructuring exercise to divest direct ownership of plantations in
India, a process facilitated by subsidised loans from the World Bank's International Finance
Corporation.[5]

In 2007, Tata Tea launched the campaign Jaago Re! to awaken youth to social issues. The
campaign was extemded into 2008. In 2009, their campaign revolve around the issue of
corruption with a new adline 'Ab Se Khilana Bandh, Pilana Shuru'.

The international trade union IUF criticised the company in 2009 for not allowing statutory
maternity leave to pregnant tea pluckers, and for locking out 1,000 workers on the Nowera
Nuddy Tea Estate in West Bengal for so long that the local government began distributing food
coupons for emergency rations to workers and their families.[6]

[edit] Marketing strategy

In spite of a global presence, the brands are distributed differently depending on the location. As
Tata tea is far better known in India and a powerful brand there, it is pushed on this market and
countries with a large Indian population. Therefore Tetley is the company's global face and the
largest markets focus on the Tetley brand. Where both brands co-exist in one market, Tetley is
positioned as the premium brand.

[edit] Jaago re!!

Tata Tea worked with Janaagraha on a voter registration drive, with the campaign name "Jaago
re!!" (Wake up!) Following this, the company moved the campaign on to opposing corruption.
The Jaago Re website encourages discussion on this and other social issues.[7]

[edit] See also