Tea’s Time: How Honest Tea® Changed the Beverage Game
The organic beverage brand has never stopped innovating
Had Seth Goldman not been so thirsty for something just a tad sweet in the late '90s, the nation's top-selling organic bottled tea might not exist. Dissatisfied with the current bottled teas on the market at the time, Goldman was inspired to create a delicious alternative. He called it Honest Tea®.
Brewing Up Change
Honest Tea got its break with Whole Foods Market (previously Fresh Fields) in 1998 after Goldman and his co-founder, his former Yale School of Management professor Barry Nalebuff, presented five thermoses of tea they'd brewed in Goldman's kitchen. By 1999, the company hit $1.1 million in sales, and Goldman was well on his way to transforming the burgeoning tea brand into the organic beverage powerhouse it is today, raking in more than $100 million in annual sales.
"When you're in entrepreneurial mode, you really can't think about minor tweaks to a product," Goldman says. "If you're going to have an impact, you have to come out with something dramatically different than what's on the market."
Honest Tea has done just that, paving the way in key areas of the beverage industry. The brand introduced the first organic bottled tea in 1999, and the first Fair Trade Certified™ bottled tea in 2003. Honest Tea's innovative plastic bottles swept the packaging awards in 2004, the same year the product line gained full USDA organic certification.
"We talk about ourselves as a mission-driven business. We are very much focused on the impact that our products have on consumers' health and on the environment and on the communities that we source from." — Seth Goldman, TeaEO Emeritus
It's All Good
Since its humble beginning in Goldman's kitchen, Honest Tea has aimed to provide organic and sustainable beverages. The company has also demonstrated its commitment to communities and the environment by partnering with various programs, companies and cooperatives to give back.
"We talk about ourselves as a mission-driven business," Goldman says. "We are very much focused on the impact that our products have on our consumers, the environment and the communities that we source from."
The Coca-Cola Company Gets Honest
In 2008, The Coca-Cola Company made a 40% investment in Honest Tea, boosting the brand's distribution network. Coca-Cola bought the company in March 2011 — the same year all of the tea leaves used in Honest Tea's products became Fair Trade Certified™.
Over the years, Honest Tea diversified beyond iced teas, offering everything from lemonades and zero calorie sodas to a line of Honest Kids juice pouches. But the tea trend Goldman so rightly predicted almost 20 years ago is booming. According to the market analysis firm Food IQ, consumers love naturally sweetened teas — like Honest Tea's "Just a Tad Sweet®" offerings — and the addition of superfruits to their brews. Consumers also love the variety found in different types of tea. In fact, earlier this year, Honest Tea expanded its offerings in the fast-food sector with an organic green tea brewed exclusively for Wendy's, as well as Honest Kids products on the menus at Wendy's and Chick-fil-A.
When it comes to growth, Honest Tea has no plans to stop bottling success — or innovating in the organic beverage space.
"We've got a whole new additional slew of innovations that we're ready to bring out the door in 2016," he says. "Obviously the trends are going in the right direction for us."
Download the Honest Tea Ingredient Source Map
When it comes to growth, Honest Tea has no plans to stop bottling success — or innovating in the organic beverage space.
"We've got a whole new additional slew of innovations that we're ready to bring out the door in 2016," he says. "Obviously the trends are going in the right direction for us."
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